IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere

Suite of development tools.

Commentaires : My experience with IBM rational has been positive during my development career. It has stayed abreast of new technologies and development methodologies in software engineering.

Avantages :

The software is incredibly powerful for large-scale software development projects. I can't think of any features we needed that were not included in this tool suite.

Inconvénients :

Well very powerful it also requires dedicated staff to keep up and running and it is very expensive. This would only be used by large-scale organizations.

Enterprise SCM and Planning

Commentaires : I've been managing IBM Rational Team Concert for almost 6 years and was able to customized it and support our developers successfully. Support is responsive at most.

Avantages :

RTC includes both SCM (Source Control Manager) and Scrum/Lean Planning both highly customized and linked that is you can force a code to be delivered only after code review (also included) and connected to a planned task owned by the developer and aimed for current sprint plan. As a centralized SCM you are protected from the check-in level. It also has a data warehouse DB being used by the Jazz Reporting Service (also included) which makes it a well designed product.

Inconvénients :

It currently has only Eclipse and MS Visual Studio client support which causes an out of the developing tool solution for developers. No offline mode. Not enough community support.

Obsolete interface, but does the job

Avantages :

Used to track software change and support requests in a highly regulated environment. Bland integration with Source Code Management systems, supports attachments, notes and estimations. Nice search/query tools and good configurability. There are way worse tools out there...

Inconvénients :

Maybe not in the latest versions, but the interface is old and text fields won't stretch. If you have some longer text you'll better copy/paste from a proper text editor. Integration with Source Code Management is achieved with a java tool that breaks if there are particular characters in tickets names, and forces to search and click the ticket at every source code check-in. The integration is nothing more than copying the commit log in a section of the ticket. Licenses are probably expensive, because we often reach the maximum number of concurrent (logged in) users and that means you can't use the software. You have to log out and retry. Session duration hence is short and even if you're logged in, you can't click a link to a ticket, it opens another window that's not logged in.

Complete, feature rich, requirements management software

Commentaires : DOORS, once learned, is a powerful and critical tool for defining requirements, maintaining requirements, as well as tracing to verification and validation. It is an essential tool for engineering development in any regulated industry.

Avantages :

DOORS is the most complete and most widely used requirements management software. For medical devices, as well as other highly regulated industries, requirements management is a critical business function. DOORS provides the functionality, traceability, and validity to manage requirements and produce the documentation needed to meet the regulations. DOORS features reduce the risk of missing key requirements, verifications, validations, as well as the flexibility to understand the project as a whole. Managing cross functional reviews of requirements, multiple stakeholders, as well as linked requirements is a huge task that DOORS makes possible with minimal errors. A huge challenge in requirements management is traceability. Tracing requirements to verification, validation, as well as risk analysis, can be very confusing and is prone to errors, but with DOORS these connections can be explicitly defined, and reports or trace documents can be created directly. Also, DOORS scripting allows users to create output documents which can be used as artifacts for the quality system, and shared directly with regulators during audit and for regulatory submissions.

Inconvénients :

DOORS has an extensive feature set that covers the whole requirements process. However, these features are not always intuitive to learn. It takes experience to master all of the functionality, and it takes time to become a DOORS master. This is a massive software tool, extensive training or first-hand experience is necessary before it can be used to its full potential.

Ease of use+ Comparible= Perfect Application

Commentaires : I am working with a Multi national company from last 6 years as a tester. And have used different tracking tools e.g.: bugzilla Jira etc but Found IBM Rational as the best application including all the features at same place.

Avantages :

IBM Rational is very easy to use bug tracking tool with excellent quality. It is compatible on all the browsers. It includes all the functionalities and features to give a tester a better way to raise his/her defect. There are different tabs for different use e.g.the Attachment can be attached through Link tabs.

Inconvénients :

There is nothing bad in this application. It is very easy compatible and a quality product.

Good option for requirement tracking.

Commentaires : For Business Analysts, IBM rational tool is good option to track requirements. Moreover it has support by known vendor so there should not be any issue with customer support.
I would recommend to use this for relatively small projects.

Avantages :

Our team use this software to track/manage the high level business requirements in a common repository. This tool is great option for managing common requirements for different customers. This software is user friendly. It is easy to track the status, charts, and taking the reports. This makes project management easy.

Inconvénients :

People find difficult to work on the RTC, when they are new to it. Exported reports are mostly in CSV format. It become difficult to extract information for complex reports. Software lacks the training materials for freashers.

Excellent tool for the development of business applications, incorporating a server for easy testing

Avantages :

many facilities and integration with plugins for development, ease of testing applications by incorporating an application server

Inconvénients :

cost of application server licenses, hardware resources and maintenance, requires third-party software to monitor the application server (Tivoli?

Good application for developing IBM specific products

Commentaires : I benefit from this application because it auto generates stub files for the development of EJB < 3 applications

Avantages :

Complete IDE for developing applications but most of all it is also tailored to make the development process easier for IBM specific products such as WebSphere

Inconvénients :

Only a limited set of instances can be run parallel on a network. This is based on the number of licenses acquired

Highly customisable to suit your personal or organisational requirements

Commentaires : Requirement engineering

Avantages :

Can be easily customised and troubleshooting is also quite easy.

Inconvénients :

Server gets quiet slow when large number of users are online.

An excellent tool for Requirements engineering

Commentaires : In a nutshell I can say it is a good tool, I am fine working on this tool in the future as well.

Avantages :

Currently we are working on IBM Doors, this tool is user friendly, you have the power to manage and add new filters according to the requirements.

Inconvénients :

Whenever I work on more than 2 modules at a time it starts to hang.

Excellent Application

Commentaires : Excellent , Product,

Avantages :

User friendly, used in production and test environment.

Inconvénients :

License cost is too much, compared to other application

The standard for systems engineering artifact creation - but not the easiest to use.

Commentaires : The ability to use DOORS databases from existing projects, and incorporate model-based systems engineering workflow using MagicDraw is tremendously valuable, but if DOORS isn't a central requirement, I do prefer the Vitech CORE and Genesys offerings for fixed scale applications, and vastly prefer Innoslate for Enterprise and Cloud solutions where concurrent engineering is valuable.

Avantages :

The ubiquitous capability within the DOORS toolset is undeniable, and the interface with MagicDraw enables useful systems engineering artifacts to be created with ease. The integrated nature of the entire Rational suite is actually very robust, and if working with a legacy project where DOORS is implemented, MagicDraw can be tremendously helpful in converting larger spreadsheet flavored artifacts into something actually parse-able to most human brains.

Inconvénients :

Ease of use is the biggest limitation, particularly with doors. An indirect side benefit of having a large database in DOORS is that configuration management occurs indirectly because only a small number of people can properly execute a change, therefore version control happens because only one (or maybe two) person is actually inputting the information. The flexibility in MagicDraw is somewhat limited, even with some creative metamodel application. Not a massive drawback or worth looking elsewhere as a singular cause, but it is a capability limitation in some instances. Value is the other serious drawback - to implement the full Rational suite is actually a solid chunk of change, and to really get full utility out of the entire IBM Rational package, at least two applications are requisite (unless you are a DOORS specialist, in which case my express condolences go out to you). The value proposition of Vitech offerings, and for anybody looking to use OML the much better value of Innoslate really are the reason I use the IBM Rational toolkit sparingly, and only when somebody else is footing the bill.

Outdated, Clunky, Awkward, Buggy, Unreliable, and Expensive to Implement and Use

Commentaires : Terrible. I can't get away from it fast enough. It explodes my development costs, and creates massive overhead for very simple chores. The entire suite needs to be retired and replaced with something that works as easy as a smart phone, integrates with standard document tools from Microsoft and other vendors, makes modifying tracing simple, easy, and effective, and allows creative tasks like trace rationale to be applied. I give IBM a fat zero for this overpriced, junky, and outdated software.

Avantages :

I haven't found anything at all that I like about Rational DOORS.

Inconvénients :

Document preparation and review capabilities are the worst of any system I've ever used. The editing functions date back to pre Windows 3 capability, might as well do requirements development in a spreadsheet using a text editor. Managing tracing is ridiculously difficult. Almost impossible to modify, or to review comprehensively. The tool requires extensive professional wrappers to be useful at all. It's too complicated, inflexible, and doesn't integrate with the rest of the document tools provided by Microsoft and other vendors. (The "Export" function ... is not integration.)

Rational Tool Concert (RTC)

Commentaires : RTC is a highly configurable enterprise wide large scale tool for supporting initial engagement of ideas that can be distilled down into epics, features, stories and tasks.. Configure the level of granularity and what you want to capture at each level with highly customised forms to capture requirements and track through to build. Not so suitable for developers who find the burden of forms and multiple screens for data capture annoying. RTC is great through initiation, planning, and testing. Also great for real time report dashboards and has preloaded a number of report types, charts, pie, bar etc for building informative dashboards. Take care to establish initial configuration approach and data structure before creating forms and onboarding people as it is hard to correct sttucture changes. It does require a dedicated config person initially and support staff. Deployed in IBM, Telstra, NBN to give you an idea of scale

Avantages :

Highly configurable. Strong work flow. Real time dashboard. Audit history. Can attach files. Good security profile management. Scaleable, flexible, powerful

Inconvénients :

Requires config, training and support staff. Licenses are expensive

Powerful tool if you have the expertise

Commentaires : It does what we needed from it but looking for a more modern tool that can connect to new software and that more people are familiar with.

Avantages :

It has everything you want from it, manages projects, business rules, defects, traces items from tests, track tests. It keeps all you need linked together and can produce reports to help read all that data. There are dash boards to follow tasks at a glance.

Inconvénients :

You need someone who is familiar with the tool to install and configure it. Setup of the tool after it is done needs training with IBM. It is expensive for what it is. The software is picky about where it is and we have four VMs that have to run all the parts of it. Upgrading java has rendered the system useless before.

Reuirement Library

Avantages :

All Requirements are written on the same platform Apart from writing the requirements in text , Images , PDF files , any kind of other file can be attached in it and can be accessed . Filters can be applied .

Inconvénients :

Difficult to use Searching is difficult as per the structure in my organization. saving a file from DOORS to your local is to lengthy process. You can not copy the text from there.

Nice to the manage tasks...

Avantages :

The tool is a good solution for managing tasks, very flexible infrastructure make it easy to fit the company needs.

Inconvénients :

The concept of the concurrent connected users license is frustrating and should be changed. In addition, the updating process is awful and taking too much time (in case of success)

The IBM Rational software is a collection of software development tools integrated for ease of use

Commentaires : The benefits from the Rational software suite are that the information provided in one set of components can be migrated to others in the suite.

Avantages :

The IBM Rational software suite is useful for every phase of software development from the capture of requirements through data modeling through use case development through documentation and developing testable components. The suite also includes the ability to perform automated unit, integration, load, and regression testing.

Inconvénients :

Because it is an integrated suite of tools, there is some inability of the individual components to interact with external components.

Feature rich but not the easiest document management

Commentaires : It is widely used in the industry and trusted by engineers.

Avantages :

Every requirement document can be stored in DOORS and links can be created for traceability which is mandatory for safety critical software industries.

Inconvénients :

Its scripting language DXL is hard to learn and maintain.

Browser based requirements management system

Commentaires : It gets the job done, but I would rather use regular DOORS instead.

Avantages :

Having been a long time user of the regular Rational DOORS, I really dislike DOORS NG. But just to note the positives, the tool is nice that it is web based therefore users don't all need individual clients and licenses installed. It does a lot of the same things that DOORS does with requirements entry and management, linking, filters, searches, and permissions. It works better with hyperlinks and does a decent job at generating documents and reports out of the stored data.

Inconvénients :

It is very clunky and hard to use and navigate. Even with various levels of filters and search options, it never seems to get me the data I want. I am also a remote user, so accessing DOORS NG over VPN has been extremely excruciating and I'm sure it isn't entirely because of network slowdowns. Setting up your own views and data extraction takes a lot of time and effort. As it is browser based, there is no way that I found to implement custom scripts for automating certain tedious things, so dealing with large amounts of data has been entirely manual.

Bugs fix management

Commentaires : Helped generating statistics per division in the organization

Avantages :

I most like the tool's ability to review history and run detailed queries. Another feature worth mentioning is it's API while integrating it in some other 3rd part tool.

Inconvénients :

Licensing method is annoying as it give only concurrent number of users to work on it in parallel. I assume it is more related to budgeting but it was still slowing my work.

use of DOORS for Requirements Managment

Commentaires : Overall - a good experienc, but to achieve the full benefits it requires clear understanding and buy in from senior management who traditionally only focus on short term costs - ie they tend to not recognise the additonal costs that wiul be incurred later in the project if you dont get your Requirements Management process in place effectively up front.

Avantages :

The software allows very detailed and acurate records to be kept. It is a very useful tool on copmplex multi disciplinary projects - like Railway projects I work on.

Inconvénients :

I have noted there can be resistance from some management who are not familiar with the complexities of Requirements Managmant on large projects. The main 'gripe' they have is the cost for DOORS and the number of people they percieve will be required to manage the system.

Not a fan, just too complicated

Avantages :

Still better than ServiceCenter: more flexible, better customizable, and the UI is better. Also this is very stable and reliable.

Inconvénients :

Feels too complicated, can't truly customize down/remove some fields you don't want. It may be good now, but check if you are comfortable with the UX

Better than Service Center or Mantis, not as good as JIRA

Avantages :

Stable - somewhat customization in terms of fields, relating efforts and work teams

Inconvénients :

Feels too complicated, can't truly customize down/remove some fields you don't want

Really useful

Commentaires : I would definitely recommend it

Avantages :

This is a really useful software, if you want to store your information. You can import and export anything on it as an excel

Inconvénients :

On the other hand it's a bit complicated to in the beginning