Eclipse is a leading open source development platform for Java-based software. The Eclipse IDE is mostly used by Developers who often need to work together and share information with other stakeholders, such as Business Analysts, Architects, Project Managers, and Testers.
With the growing involvement of multiple stakeholders in almost all the phases of the software development lifecycle, it has become a challenge to provide a collaborative development environment for all stakeholders regardless of their geographic locations and their tools, which are often outside the scope of the Eclipse environment. Organizations need a way to allow Eclipse users to share information back and forth with other stakeholders from within their familiar Eclipse environment.
Features & Benefits
- Helps to set up an integrated environment wherein an organization can use Java based open source tools suited for different lifecycle phases.
- Keeps all stakeholders in sync with the latest changes and ensures smooth change propagation through lifecycle silos.
- Allows stakeholders to operate on requirements, designs, test cases, and defects from their native tool’s environment, thereby reducing duplication of work and training time.
- Helps to establish cross-tool traceability relationships.
- Provides corporate level visibility to facilitate proper and timely decision making.
- Organizations gain access to data locked in different silos and relate, analyze, and summarize them for proper management reporting.
- Brings process automation capabilities to tools that do not have their own workflow capability.
- Enhanced development platform.
- Accessibility to artifacts of other integrated tools, directly through the Eclipse IDE
- Accessibility to Eclipse File, Class, and Method from other integrated tools.
- Synchronization among disparate ALM tools.
- Relational links between Eclipse entities and between entities of Eclipse and entities of other integrated tools.
- Easy to configure and customize using web based codeless configuration screens.
Kovair Support for Eclipse Integration
The ‘Kovair plug-in for Eclipse’ enables collaboration among the stakeholders throughout the development lifecycle and ensures synchronization among disparate ALM tools. Using this plug-in, Eclipse users can have extended access to artifacts, such requirements, designs, test cases, tasks, and defects — all of which originate from diverse ALM tools — without leaving their preferred IDE. However, artifacts of diverse ALM tools can be accessed through Eclipse plugin only when these tools are connected to the Kovair Omnibus Integration Platform using their respective adapters. The Kovair Omnibus Integration Platform offers an open and seamless integration framework with all essential ALM services like collaboration, traceability, process automation, reporting, and analytics built in a single repository.
Kovair further enhances its Eclipse integration capabilities by providing the Eclipse Integration adapter that exposes Eclipse entities, such as File, Class, and Method. This adapter allows users of ALM tools, such as Visual Studio to view/modify the exposed Eclipse entities from within their preferred. In addition, users can establish relational links between:
- The exposed Eclipse entities (e.g. link a Class to a Method) An exposed Eclipse entity and that of another integrated tool (e.g. link a RequisitePro Requirement or RSA Design Element to an Eclipse File).
- Users of an ALM tool can access Eclipse entities and create relational links only when the tool adapter is registered in Kovair. Omnibus accesses the Eclipse entities exposed by the Kovair Eclipse adapter.
Eclipse Integration Adapter offers the followings:
Open Source Integration
Open source tools make it possible for companies of varying requirements to have a solution that fits their needs. The entire IT industry is seeking a new equilibrium between open source and commercial software, and the Kovair plug-in for Eclipse helps in achieving that equilibrium by allowing you to set up an integrated environment wherein you can use Java based open source tools along with commercial tools, such as HP QC, VSTS Developer and RSA.
Enhanced Collaboration
The Kovair plug-in for Eclipse is beneficial for Java developers who wish to use a single tool environment for doing their primary development work and collaborating with other teams. This plug-in enables any organization to provide an enhanced development platform that seamlessly integrates established organizational processes, tools, and practices. Developers and testers have real-time access to the Requirements and Test Cases from within Eclipse IDE, and hence become more informed to perform better coding and testing activities. Also, “Review” tasks created in other Project Management tools show up in the IDE, allowing Project Managers and Team Leaders to do their review jobs within IDE and submit the results immediately.
Change Management
By integrating Eclipse with other tools in the ALM ecosystem, the Kovair plug-in for Eclipse keeps all stakeholders in sync with the latest changes and ensures smooth change propagation through lifecycle silos.Increased Productivity
By virtue of Eclipse integration, developers and testers get access to requirements, design items, test cases, defects, and other artifact items directly from within their IDEs. These items may originate from different ALM tools, but developers and testers can simultaneously operate on all these items from their native environment. Even Project Management activities can be done from Eclipse IDE. This increases the productivity of Eclipse users to a great extent and facilitates them to work efficiently within their familiar IDE. It also reduces a lot of training time for Eclipse users, which is otherwise required to learn different tools.
Enhanced Visibility
Kovair plug-in for Eclipse allows developers and testers to report the progress regularly on their coding, testing, bug fixing, and review tasks. Since the stakeholders can work from within their familiar IDE, the scope of recording granular level information is higher. By virtue of Omnibus integrated framework, the granular information can be transmitted to a Project Management tool for creating real-time reports. This results in greater visibility for the Project Managers on the overall status.
Detailed Metrics
Using Kovair plug-in for Eclipse, developers, testers and managers can capture detailed data like code analysis results, unit testing results, test coverage results, build results, and other detailed information. Project stakeholders can do analysis and reporting on these detailed data in Kovair or any other Project Management tool integrated through Omnibus.
How does the Kovair plug-in for Eclipse work?
The Kovair plug-in for Eclipse works in conjunction with Kovair Omnibus Integration Platform that enables organizations to make lifecycle tools active participants in the overall ALM process as part of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Kovair has built an open Omnibus plug-in architecture that communicates with individual tools integrated to Omnibus through adapters. Eclipse plug-in is based on this architecture, and therefore, any organization can create its own plug-ins for their home-grown tools using the same open service API. Kovair plug-in for Eclipse extends the Eclipse IDE with menus to connect to an organization’s Tools Integrated Development Environment (TIDE). Developers can connect to TIDE using authentic user credentials and view the projects and artifacts like requirements, design items, test cases, tasks and defects in a tree view, exposed in an Explorer window. Without leaving the Eclipse IDE, they can navigate to see list of requirements, test cases, tasks, and relations between items. Though artifacts can be exposed to developers, the options to view, update, add, and delete items depend on their access permissions. Kovair plug-in for Eclipse communicates with Omnibus Service through open APIs. By means of these open APIs, data get collected from integrated ALM tools. The developers are then able to work on them as per given privileges. Once the changes are made on the collected data from Eclipse IDE, Omnibus Service updates them in respective ALM tools.
How does the Kovair Eclipse Integration Adapter work?
The Kovair Eclipse Integration Adapter lets you connect Eclipse with the Kovair Omnibus Integration Platform in the same way as other tools, such as HP QC and JIRA are connected to Kovair Omnibus Integration Platform by means of their respective adapters. The job of Kovair Eclipse Integration Adapter is to expose Eclipse entities, such as File, Class, and Method; collect the events generated in the Eclipse tool corresponding to these exposed entities; pass the events to the Omnibus Engine for processing; receive appropriate actions from the Omnibus Engine; and trigger the action in the relevant tool integrated with the Kovair Omnibus Integration Platform. The events and corresponding actions are specified by pre-defined Service Flows configured in Kovair Omnibus. The Kovair Eclipse Integration Adapter contains a database wherein it stores the events and actions received until they are passed on to the appropriate recipient. This ensures that events and actions are queued and not lost in case the Omnibus Engine or the tool is busy.