IBM Engineering Rhapsody Tip #88 - Exploring how RMM has changed, 6.0.6 to 7.0.1 - Part 1 of 2 (Intermediate)

One of the areas where the IBM Engineering Rhapsody development invested a lot of effort in the last 3-4 releases is in its integration into the IBM Jazz platform with the Rhapsody Model Manager (RMM) server-side technology. This is crucial, of course, for its integration with DOORS Next generation, IBM's web-based Requirements Management (RM) technology built on top of Jazz. RMM also enables web views of the model and linking with work items and planning and shared configured access to models. In version 7 of Jazz there was a significant change, in that the functionality provided by the /am application became an extension to the /ccm application, rather than a separate entity. Over the releases they've also done work to make more functionality available directly in the Rhapsody browser. In this first of two videos, I wanted to give some examples of things that have changed (especially to those who are user older versions and thinking of migrating).

Here's the transcript of Part 1:

Rhapsody Model Manager (RMM) is the server-side technology for managing Rhapsody projects in the IBM Jazz platform.

To enable me to create/update my training for different Jazz releases, I've installed a local 7.0.1 Jazz server using a Hyper-V virtual machine (in Windows 10 Pro).

In this silent video, I look at some of the key differences I've noticed in the 3 releases from RMM 6.0.6 to 7.0.1.

An obvious change is the renaming. Engineering Workflow Management is the new name for Rational Team Concert.

Not too many changes in the Eclipse client. It still performs the role of allowing access to  deeper workflow management features.

There's still lots of stuff available here like baselining, data feeds, diff/merge, work item editing, creating components and workspaces.

Let's launch Rhapsody 9.0.1 for the 7.0.1 server. This too has been renamed for 9.x (dropping the 'Rational' branding).

This project has been disconnected from the server, so l need to re-attach it to the server.

As before, status icons show use the status of units under configuration management.

There's some new functionality related to seeing the descendant unit's status though.

The smaller overlay icon in the top-right, tells me that a child unit has changed enabling me to know where changes are in the tree.

Also, the older Team Concert menus are now split across the Unit and Unit with descendants menus.

The Unit with descendants menus makes it easier to do SCM functions further up in the browser tree, e.g., deliver or accept changes.

The status icons are updated and the output window includes slightly more information than in 6.0.6.

Let's try making a diagram change.

As usual with Rhapsody, there are some properties that will control behavior, e.g. diagrams will be updated on deliver according to this policy.

The default Save policy will be to check in the changes and Deliver will deliver the changes and update the web views.

You may notice a bit more information in the web client (compared with 6.0.6) and the diagram was updated (actually this was in 6.0.6.1/Rhapsody 8.4 also).

So, here's the biggest change in 7.0.x. No, not the black bar, but rather  the /ccm application has taken on the role of RMM as well.

Let's review of the Jazz applications.

Engineering Insights is what used to be called RELM.

"DOORS Next" name makes an appearance in the menus (/rm).

Quality Manager is Test Management (/qm).

Team Concert is Workflow Management (/ccm).

/am is no longer a separate Jazz application. It's combined into the /ccm application (when installed correctly, the /ccm project area can be configured to enable model management)

This makes it easier to install/deploy but is something to consider when upgrading from pre-V7.0 servers. It also means that a same /ccm project area can provide access to both model information and work items.

I'll cover this in Part 2 and also the ability to accept changes from the Rhapsody menus (stay tuned ;-)

Interested in RMM or Rhapsody training/customizations? Email me.