New webinar on Rhapsody Model Manager coming up

In this IBM hostd webinar, Fraser Chadburn, a technical consultant with 11 years of experience in IBM Rational Rhapsody and 20 years of experience in UML and SysML modelling will tackle the newer topic of collaborative development with Rhapsody Model Manager 6.0.6 (Rhapsody 8.3.1) including a live demo of collaborative multi-user workflows. Rhapsody Model Manager is the latest server-side technology for team-based collaboration. RMM is based on the mature SCM functionality provided by Rational Team Concert (RTC). The webinar will touch on some of the options such as Rhapsody units, optional properties and how one might organise Rhapsody's package structure. As well as highlighting some of the enhancements in the 6.0.6 release of Rhapsody Model Manager (and its associated Jazz/am application) he'll touch on optimistic vs pessimistic working strategies and use of the Rhapsody DiffMerge.

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4703393379129809409

Rational Rhapsody Tip #46 - Adding editable units outside the project directory (Advanced)

Normally with an IBM Rational Rhapsody project the writable units are all configured as part of the model under the _rpy folder. As such referenced units would historically always be read-only. In Rhapsody 8.1.5 it became possible to add a referenced unit outside the project directory and have that unit be writable. To do this you need to deselect the Copy into model option when adding the unit. This video demonstrates with Rhapsody 8.3.1. The feature also works when you have separate models as different components in Rational Team Concert or Rhapsody Model Manager (I slipped this into the demo at the end). Hope that helps!

Rational Rhapsody Tip #45 - Making safe use of the ReferenceUnitFile property (Advanced)

This video covers use of the General::Model::ReferenceUnitPath property (using IBM Rational Rhapsody v8.3.1). This property tells Rhapsody to set a relative reference to the unit file whenever you do Add to model. This is particularly useful when you have multiple components in an SCM tool such as Rhapsody Model Manager (Jazz/am 6.0.6 is shown here). This is because different users will have different root folders on their local file system where they will store and access the projects. Not using relative references would result in lots of "cannot find unit" problems when opening projects. By setting the ReferenceUnitPath property you can alleviate these problems (assuming all the components share the same roots).

However, there is one major pitfall, in that the property will also affect Profiles that you add after setting it. Referencing the profiles using relative references is also a bad idea because profiles are not relative to the project, but rather contained in the installation. Rhapsody normally deals with profiles in the installation by pre-fixing the path to the unit using the $OMROOT variable. Fortunately, if you accidentally end up with the paths being wrong then you can use the Edit Unit dialog to manually fix them (as shown here). This video shows Rhapsody 8.3.1 projects with corresponding components being created using Rhapsody Model Manager 6.0.6.

Reflections on a great Agile Engineering Summit Oct 15-17

Last week I was in Washington DC, in the States, privileged to be presenting a paper (and demo) on IBM Rational Rhapsody at IBM's Agile Engineering Summit. What was really nice was meeting up with people I've worked with. There was also the bumping into the odd German-sounding chap and fantastic IBM colleagues ;-). Let me say hi, therefore, to Willert software tools who offer great value for money (and frankly some good direct speaking) for those looking to use Model-Driven Development (MDD) with Rhapsody on tight-embedded targets and micro-controllers (for a good price). They've been doing this for automotive customers for a long time. Other than that it was fantastic to meet some of my USA Rhapsody customers and listen to their presentations. Great week.

Rational Rhapsody Tip #44 - RMM 6.0.6 accept/deliver workflow and icons (Intermediate)

I've had quite a few people asking about collaborative working in IBM Rational Rhapsody so I quickly knocked up this video that shows IBM Rhapsody Model Manager (Jazz/am). One of the nice things about the solution is seeing the visibility of the SCM status in the Rhapsody browser. The icons essentially mirror those of Rational Team Concert (on which RMM is built). This means that developers can see what's moving in the stream as soon as it occurs, and make an integration decision. The re-activeness of the Rhapsody client is also pretty good. Obviously the longer you wait before integrating other developers changes is a key question (the isolation vs integration conundrum). However, this enables users to react quickly to changes that affect them. Rhapsody Model Manager is a version of RTC designed for models, hence the integration is similar but improved to the RTC integration (i.e. better in 6.0.6). Included are also more commands in the right-click menu in Rhapsody, that makes it's easy to navigate to the RTC Client. RMM is licensed as per Design Manager hence potentially already bundled in your licensing (something to check).

If you want any tips on configuring RMM then let me know.