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Month: June 2015

HP Enterprise Application Lifecycle Management – HP ALM provides a centralized platform for managing applications starting from Requirements Management to Test Planning to Defect Management – all the core product lifecycle activities from planning to delivery.

HP ALM is an all-in-all ALM suite for development teams, as it has all the core ALM capabilities on its own. However, when it comes to collaborating HP ALM users with other tool users of extended development teams who don’t use HP ALM or HP QC, it may become an impediment. Since multi-vendor tools work in isolation and they don’t readily connect to HP ALM it results in communication gap between team members.

Features & Benefits

  • Creates an Integrated Test Management framework for HP ALM users by making requirements, test artifacts and defects accessible between HP and non-HP tools like RQM, Selenium, Testlink, JIRA, and Bugzilla.
  • Streamlines development activities by connecting HP ALM objects with 3rd party tools, thus ensuring cross-tool visibility and bringing in team collaboration
  • Automates the flow of issues related information and their status between development and testing teams and then notifies each other, so that both team members are well informed about the corrective actions to be undertaken
  • Eliminates common software development errors that occur due to manual intervention, miscommunication and inconsistent information
  • Provides a consolidated view of synchronized cross-tool artifacts and their interrelationships across the entire chain from Kovair ALM
  • Based on standard HP ALM tool specifications
  • Fully featured graphical user interface to manage integration schedule
  • Support for customizing business rules to define entity and field mapping
  • Bi-directional synchronization of HP ALM objects like Requirements, Test cases and Defects with other tools like DOORS Next Gen, JIRA, ClearQuest, RTC, TFS, CA, Rally
  • Easy plug-in and plug-out mechanism through ESB based architecture for quick and hazardless integration setup

Kovair Integration Support for HP ALM On-Premise and Cloud Version

Kovair addresses these organizational pain points with its flexible and scalable integration hub- Omnibus Integration Platform. Together with an adapter/connector and an IDE based plug-in for HP ALM, Kovair Omnibus enables HP ALM users to manage requirements, test cases and defects across heterogeneous tool setup without the need for manual intervention and traditional spreadsheet based project management.

Kovair currently supports integration with HP ALM Version 11, 11.5 and 12. For any subsequent releases please go to the web page  or contact sales@kovair.com.

HP ALM integration with Kovair

Additional Plug-in Support

Kovair also develops IDE based plug-in for users which allows developers to connect to HP ALM from any IDE (such as Eclipse JEE or Visual Studio) of their choice, thus providing remote users an easy access to HP ALM objects.

OSLC integration Support

HP ALM, being a non-OSLC compliant tool cannot establish OSLC linking directly with IBM Jazz-based tools like DOORS Next Generation, RQM and RTC. Kovair Omnibus enables HP ALM act as an OSLC provider where OSLC consumers can establish OSLC link within it referring the HP ALM items.

Why integrate HP ALM with Kovair

  • Business analysts may manage requirements in more than one tool other than HP ALM, but Testers prefer viewing project requirements in HP ALM as they need to plan corresponding test suites and execute test cases. This creates a communication barrier between multiple tool users.
  • Testers use HP ALM to prepare and run test cases and raise defects there in the tool, but developers about to fix those defects in JIRA or other popular defect tracking tools may not see the defect items real-time, therefore cannot start working on the fixes immediately.
  • Project managers want to monitor release progress by viewing defect reports in HP ALM, but development team may not update the record of resolved defects directly to HP ALM. They may prefer doing so in their own defect tracking tool such as JIRA or Bugzilla.
  • Testing team manages test artifacts and defects in HP ALM, but development team may prefer to view and manage their work in Agile planning tools. Unless both the teams are in sync with each other near real-time, there could be sheer confusions about who, what, when and why of any development objects being created and human error.
  • QA Leads want to draw a traceability relationship between requirements, test cases, test runs and defects being maintained in HP ALM and other popular requirements management, defect and testing tool including open sources, but without HP ALM synced with other tools viewing traceability of cross-tool artifacts is not possible.
  • Senior managers need to supervise an entire project workflow in order to understand if development and testing effort pass UAT (User Acceptance Testing) successfully and match with customers’ requirements. Unless HP ALM artifacts like Requirements or Defects are linked with Code files and,Change sets in SCM, creating a complete chain of traceable artifacts – Requirements, Code files, Change sets, Test cases and Defects is not possible.
  • Help Desk team needs to update customers about real-time ticket resolution status from their own ITSM tool like BMC Remedy or ServiceNow, but Engineering team working on the escalated Tickets may not update those records directly into a Helpdesk tool, rather prefer updating the defect reports from within HP ALM.

Kovair Omnibus addresses all these organizational challenges and creates an integrated ALM platform around HP ALM for global users.

Entities SupportedRequirements, Test Suite, Test Case, Test Step, Test Run and Defect

In this video, you will learn how Kovair Omnibus facilitates bi-directional integration between LDRA Testbed and Kovair ALM and in the process connects other best-of-breed tools in the ecosystem. It includes a demo integration flow between DOORS, RTRT, ClearCase, LDRA and JIRA powered by Kovair ALM and Omnibus Integration Platform.

 Video Summary

The integration of LDRA Testbed with Kovair Omnibus platform fuels the development of Safety Critical Software and maximizes the value of LDRA tool investment. Together with Kovair Application and Omnibus integration technology, LDRA provides a Continuous Integration (CI) platform to its users that automates and manages the build process for large-scale, system-level software projects.

When integrated, organizations can enforce LDRA compliance test as a mandatory step for their global development teams and ensure that non-compliance related coding errors are identified and resolved at early stage before code check-in happens.

To learn more about the integration please visit Kovair-LDRA Integration page and download the datasheet.
What are ALM and Integrated ALM
 
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What is Application Lifecycle Management?

Application lifecycle management – ALM is the process of managing software applications from their initial planning through retirement i.e. from business idea generation to when the application no longer has any business value, and is removed from service. An application’s lifecycle includes the entire time span during which an organization spends money on this asset. The process of managing application’s lifecycle can be divided into three distinct areas – governance, development, and operations.
  • Governance encompasses all of the decision making and project management steps which extends throughout an applications’ lifecycle.
  • Development, the actual creation of application occurs between idea and deployment stage and may require several SDLC efforts depending on the iterations made in Requirements definition, design, coding, and testing phases mainly due to product upgrade or launch of wholly new versions.
  • Operations start shortly before deployment and involve running, monitoring and maintaining of the application for the rest of its life.

Three Aspects of Application Lifecycle Management

Fig: The Three Aspects of Application Lifecycle Management – ALM
  To summarize, ALM is a set of pre-defined processes that start somewhere in the business as an idea, a need, a challenge or a risk and then pass through different development phases such as Requirements definition, design, development, testing, deployment, release and maintenance spanning across an entire lifecycle of a product. Throughout the ALM process, each of these steps is closely monitored and controlled, followed by proper tracking and documentation of any changes to the application.

ALM is Different from SDLC

ALM is much more than SDLC. Software Development Life Cycle – SDLC, as we all know it is limited to the phases of software development, i.e. requirements, design, coding, testing, configuration and project management. ALM, on the other hand, deals with a broader perspective of applications. It does not finish at the end of development, but when the application is no longer used by the business i.e. primarily many years after the initial development. To simplify, ALM is the superset which includes one or more SDLCs that may appear in the entire lifecycle.

How to Implement ALM

As the three aspects of ALM – Governance, Development and Operations are the indispensable parts of any application, they need to be connected to each other to maximize business value of software. Having the right combination of tools and processes along with a streamlined workflow can make the job easier. There are a number of vendors and open source groups who provide tools to manage each of the ALM phases. Some vendors bring together a range of tools to support several aspects of ALM. However, ALM tools should be integrated not only horizontally, but also vertically so that connections can be established among cross-functional tools involved in the process, and therefore, the three distinct ALM phases can be performed well.

The Bottom Line

Any organization that wants to adapt to quickly changing requirements of customers and develop scalable and high-quality business applications on time at lower cost needs to set up an ALM framework around its teams and tools. One should take a broad and holistic view of ALM beyond SDLC steps, as that is mission critical to developing any business application.

What is Integrated ALM?

Integrated Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is a totally integrated set of tools and processes that help organizations manage the complete lifecycle of an application development. It connects different teams, activities, platforms, tools, and processes.

Why Integrate ALM Tools and Processes?

Organizations often spend millions in individual software development tools for managing Requirements, Projects, Portfolios, Software designs, Development, Testing, Deployment, Release and other functional areas. However, these tools are not connected to each other, and therefore, lead to cumbersome manual procedures while synchronizing data or processes between them. The situation worsens if teams working on those tools are geographically isolated and on different time zones. It is important that enterprises employ an integrated suite of tools that keeps team members in sync with each other. This ensures a greater degree of collaboration among cross-functional teams followed by better quality application and faster delivery.

How does Integrated ALM Add Value?

  • Overcomes challenges of globally distributed development – keeps all stakeholders synchronized
  • Ensures seamless collaboration among ALM tools behind firewalls across diverse networks
  • Manages projects and resources across the tools, breaking down organizational silos
  • Helps monitoring exact status of different teams working on different areas of a project
  • Maintains a centralized and single data repository for multiple ALM phases and artifacts
  • Provides ALM tools interoperability, cross-repository linking and transparency across organizations
  • Establishes end-to-end traceability of artifacts from within users’ preferred tool environment
  • Automates lifecycle processes cutting across tool boundaries
  • Reduces manual hand-offs between teams and tools mitigating chances of human error
  • Saves time and cost in managing complex, multifarious projects
  • Enforces best practice processes across best-of-breed tools. No compromise on tool selection and its operability
  • Ensures code quality and performance throughout the lifecycle processes
  • Helps Managers gain greater insight into project anytime, anywhere
  • Provides real-time actionable metrics to take corrective measures
  • Ensures zero-error and zero-loss data synchronization between tools

What are the Challenges of Integrated ALM?

Introducing and implementing Integrated ALM in development organizations is not easy for following reasons:
  • Multi-vendor tools use various technologies such as command line interface, desktop application, client-server, or web based that run on different platforms such as Windows, Linux, and UNIX.
  • Software being produced uses a wide range of technologies such as .NET based desktop application, Java based web application, or a COBOL based mainframe application.
  • Tools use various data repositories such as proprietary file structures, XML, Excel, or relational databases of various flavors.
  • Tools are geographically distributed as the development groups and team members from multiple corporate entities are.

What are the Approaches for Integrated ALM?

Considering the fact that leading ALM vendors are trying to build Integrated ALM platform around their clients’ tool environment, their approaches differ significantly. Following are the three major approaches, their limitations and advantages.
  • Approach #1: Point-to-point Integrated Multi-Vendor Tools Limitations: Complexity of tool combinations, Handcrafted business integration rules, and replacement dilemma Approach
  • #2: Single Vendor Integrated ALM Tools Limitations: Compromise in tool usage, Rip and Replace for existing tools, One size fits all, Technology Islands of development Approach
  • #3: Multi-vendor best-of-breed Integrated ALM Tools by ESB based Integration Hub

The Bottom Line

Availability, Performance, Scalability, Security, Manageability and Maintainability – organizations need to consider all major aspects of Integrated ALM before choosing a vendor who can maximize ROI from the existing or new ALM tool investments. Anything less than will not make an ALM framework in real measure.
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