Creating baselines in configuration-enabled applications

A baseline is a read-only set of versioned artifacts. Create baselines to capture the state of a stream at a specific point in time, and to define a starting point for new work. For example, create a baseline of a stream and use it as the basis of a new stream for new work. You can create a baseline of a stream at any point during the project lifecycle, such as before or after a project milestone is reached.

Before you begin

  • Ensure that you are logged in to a project.
  • Your current configuration must be a stream.
  • You must have the Configuration Lead role or have permission to create baselines.
  • Understand how your organization uses streams and baselines that are based on how many teams need to work in parallel on different versions of the same artifacts. To learn more, see Patterns for stream usage on Jazz.net.

About this task

A baseline captures the current versions of artifacts in a stream. A baseline is a repository object that you can use to return your stream to an earlier configuration; for example, you can preserve the state of a stream when you released a project for testing.
Tip: If your team uses global configurations, you can create a baseline of a stream from the configuration tree view in the Global Configuration Management (GCM) application. See Creating baselines of streams contributed by other IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) applications.

Procedure

  1. On the toolbar, click the current configuration name; then, click Create Baseline.
  2. Follow the prompts that you see.

Results

The current state of the stream that you are working in is captured.

What to do next

To navigate to the baseline later, you must switch to it: see Selecting a component and configuration to work in.

At this point, you might create a stream for new work, using the versions of the artifacts in this baseline. If you have permission, you or a configuration lead for the GCM application might also add the baseline to a global configuration, to provide a view of all the artifacts that are used in a version of your product or system.

At any time during the project lifecycle, you can compare the baseline to a stream to see whether they contain different versions of artifacts. See the topic about comparing artifacts or configurations that corresponds to your ELM application.