Rational Integration

Question

We are just beginning a fairly large project and are planning to use VS.Net 2005; however, several people on the project team have had experience with Rational Rose and Rational RequisitePro, we are used to that environment, and we have naturally had no experience with the VSTeam capabilities.  We are in a quandary as to whether to use all the features of Team System and/or Rational products which we have experience and confidence in.

Here's a few questions - I hope someone out there is in a similar dilemna and is willing to share thoughts and ideas on this.

Microsoft seems to have no requirements management tool similar to Rational RequisitePro - what is the Microsoft strategy in this area?  Is there any plan to provide any level of integration with RequisitePro or other Requirements Management Tools?

Rational has said they're not going to support Visual Studio.Net 2005 with the Rational Rose XDE version, so that leaves open the question...Do we use a stand-alone version of Rose for modeling in order to integrate with RequisitePro without any integration with VS.Net or use the VSTeam system capabilities for modeling without any integration with a requirements management tool?

The fundamental questions I'm trying to understand is how do the Rational tools fit with the Microsoft tools strategy...  So far it doesn't look like they fit together very well at all...maybe that's intentional that both companies are competitive with each other in this area?

Any thoughts and suggestions on this would be appreciated...

Thanks,

Chuck Cobb

Answer 1

I have the same questions that Chuck has.  We are just beginning to look at a requirements management tool, and so far RequisitePro seems to be it.  We'd love to use VSTS to manage requirements, but it just doesn't seem to have nearly the requirements management capabilities that RequisitePro does.

Could someone from Microsoft please address the question as to the Microsoft strategy for a requirements management tool?  Do we have any hope of integration between RequisitePro and VSTS?

Thanks,
Beth

Answer 2

Hi Beth,

I attended an IBM Rational Seminar this morning and I now have a better handle on how Rational sees the alternatives.  If you want to share information on this, send me an e-mail at [e-mail] and I'll send you a summary of what I learned from Rational.

I would still like to hear the Microsoft perspective on this.  There is a giant hole in the Microsoft approach without addressing requirements management that needs to be filled somehow.

Chuck

Answer 3

Rational will not extend any more the product support for XDE on the .NET enviroment <= Starting from VS.NET 2005, however it does continue up to VS.NET 2003.

They have said they recognizes the need to continue to support MS Development environments, so the strategy will be to ask a 3rd party to develop a product based on Eclipse that can exhibit code generation capabilities for .NET environment. ( e.g. Some plugin or tool based on eclipse that can generate code for .NET )

Rational has stated they will continue their support and enhacement for many of their current tools: Rose, Requisite Pro, ClearCase, etc. <= Let see what happens !

For Requisite Pro, you're correct, VS.NET 2005 does not have the power and broadness of a real Requirement Management tool yet, this also may implicate their testing coverage will have some impact.

I suggest that you continue using the ReqPro on a regular basis ( although you will not have the integration you may have by using the Rational suite ).

Regards
Carlos

Answer 4

Hi folks,

   Thanks for the great thread on requirements management. The idea of a unified work item system is deceptively powerful. I would recommend taking a look at our reports to see how an integrated VSTS product can address some of your needs. You can always create a new use case work item, for example, and attach your use case descriptions to it. I’d also suggest storing them on the project portal.

 

Randy

MSF

http://www.advancedusecases.com

Answer 5

I got a response from Rational earlier this week.  There is a third party product that provides integration from RSM to VS.Net.  Here's the information that they provided me:

The RSM plugin was developed by a third party and is available now.  You can see the product description at http://www.interactive-objects.com/main_menu/products/editions.  The product is call ArcStyler for IBM RSM (Rational Software Modeler.  It supports J2EE and .NET.  For .NET it supports C#.

I think it does round-trip code engineeering, but I don't have any further information on this - I've sent an e-mail to the company asking them when they will support VS.Net 2005 and I haven't received a response.

Chuck

Answer 6

Regarding the idea of using work-item tracking for requirements management...

I can't imagine how that would work, but I would love to learn more...Is there any Microsoft documentation available that would explain how to do that?  This is an important area that Microsoft needs to address...if Microsoft intends for users to use work item tracking for tracking requirements and use cases, I think we need to see some kind of white paper with examples telling us how to do that at a minimum.

Thanks,

Chuck

Answer 7

Chuck,

You may want to look at www.osellus.com for IRIS tool which provides tailoring of MSF or RUP or other methodologies for enactment in Visual Studio 2005 Team System. As an example you may also want to check this 8-minute video on "Enacting RUP in VSTS" at http://www.osellus.com/solutions/microsoft/rup-vsts_solutions.html.

Chandra

Answer 8

The online info for ArcStyler don't indicate that .NET is more than an afterthought, IMO.  Roundtripping doesn't seem to be supported automatically, but you can extract a model from code - if it's Java/J2, not .NET.  I couldn't find anything about .NET Framework version support, either - does it even know of 2.0?

We're stuck using the rational suite of tools because of the requirements issues - as well as lack of use-case manangement - mentioned here.  We're using VSTS for the dev work, but can't even use the class designer, app designer, etc., since there's no traceability back to the requirements in ReqPro.  This is a real headache.

If anyone finds a good solution, that person will be a hero :).

Answer 9

Stan,

 

Sorry it's taken me 2 years to respond to your thread.  You may not even see this, but for those of us who use Google to find things, this might be of use to some. 

 

There is a company in Australia that makes a UML 2.x compliant modeling tool called "Enterprise Architect".  The company is SparxSystems.  The tool has various pricing models, but it's far less expensive than XDE or the Rational Suite.  With 3rd party plugins, it will plug into VS.NET 2005.  Code generation is fair.  Comparatively, XDE.NET was by far the best in round-tripping although it also had its quirks. 

 

EA is intended for MDD.  Requirements can be captured in the modeling tool and can be associated with use cases and realizations.  This automatically provides the traceability matrix and doesn't require you to do all the linking with the Word plugin.  The tool also interfaces with TFS for source control.  4+1 views are supported along with some additional views to cover 2.x compliance as well as requirements, test, etc. 

 

In addition, EA has Use Case Metrics built in.  I've used this for estimating with a fair amount of success.  We're not even close to CMM3, but I've been measuring velocity in TFS on our projects and have used those outcomes to adjust internal and external factors to come fairly close.  Let's just say we haven't gone over budget thus far...

 

The modeling painter is extremely nice and intuitive.  One other thing I like about it that I don't recall XDE doing is providing the capability of choosing overrides and method implementations when doing a generalize spec or interface realization.  Also, the tool contains similar feature to Pattern Explosion (I think that's what it was called).  GoF is fully supported and with a little effort, you can include your own patterns. 

 

Oh, the tool will also allow you generate both platform independent as well as platform specific models.  PSMs cover Java, C# and a variety of other languages.

Answer 10

Hello Timmy, 

Can you please explain more about the integration between EA and TFS. Because i explored this tool and didn’t find anything about integration between TFS work items and EA.