Software development is a collaborative effort needing active and timely input and response from all its members. Every day, project managers face ever-increasing pressures to produce high-quality software with increasing constraints. With IBM's Rational Team Concert collaborative software delivery environment, you can tremendously improve the productivity of your entire team through a web-based user interface, continuous builds, a customizable process with work support, team support, integration, and many more features.
Chapter 1, Beginning with IBM RTC, introduces you to several software development challenges such as technology advances, distributed teams, collaboration, and software processes. You will also have a bird's-eye view of the Rational Team Concert and Jazz platform.
Chapter 2, Installing RTC and WebSphere, looks at various offerings from Rational Team Concert. We will download the Rational Team Concert Enterprise Edition and configure it on the WebSphere application server. This chapter also gives a basic introduction to using the Eclipse Client as well as navigate through the JUnit Example from Sandbox.
Chapter 3, Setting up the Project, introduces the Book Manager Application that will be used throughout this book. We will also get an in-depth knowledge of the architecture and functionality of the application as well as import, set up, build, and run the Book Manager Application in Rational Team Concert.
In Chapter 4, Team and Source Control, we will see how Rational Team Concert enhances the source control management experience by giving the power to the development team. We will also explore different concepts in the Team Source Control and then move on to see how to work with the Rational Team Source Control.
Chapter 5, Team Collaboration and Work Items, introduces how Rational Team Concert takes care of some important collaboration challenges. We get an in-depth working knowledge on Mail Configuration, Instant Messaging, and Feeds in the Collaboration space. Using the Book Manager Application, we will explore several important aspects of Work Items and Dashboards.
In Chapter 6, Development Process and Release Planning, we will explore various aspects of software development process and release planning and management. For the software development process, we will be introduced to the software process templates, configuring the templates, and team roles and from Release Planning, we will get an overview of iterations, sprints, backlogs, and tracking releases.
In Chapter 7, Build Management, we will see an overview of the build engine, build toolkit, how to define the build, and track the progress from the Eclipse and Web client. In the process, we will set up the build engine and track the Book Manager Project's builds from the perspective of a developer and build user.
In Chapter 8, Extending RTC, we will see the Jazz extension architecture and explore various ways to extend Rational Team Concert. We will set up the SDK for extension development and then take a quick peek into the client and server extensions.
In Appendix A, Quick Reference, we will see several frequently used terms in the context of Jazz and Rational Team Concert.
In Appendix B, Installing the Express-C Edition with the Tomcat Server, we will install the Express-C edition on the Tomcat server. We will also start the server and configure the Jazz server.
In Appendix C, The BookManager Application Architecture, we will see the BookManager technical architecture that uses JEE technologies such as JSPs, servlets, Struts, and Hibernate. We will also look into the BookManager Application's functionality.
In Appendix D, What's New in RTC v3.0, we will see an overview of new features in the latest release of Rational Team Concert. A JUnit project example will be used to explore the various new features.
The following software products are needed for this book:
Windows XP/Vista/ 7
RTC Express-C Installation 2.2.0.2 (for Chapter 8 and Appendix B) and RTC Enterprise Installation 2.2.0.2 (for chapters 2 to 7)
WebSphere Installation
Tomcat Server (to test the BookManager Application)
If you are a Project Manager or Team Member who would like to find an integrated approach to deal with modern software development challenges, this book is for you. Or, if you are someone who likes to stay one step ahead in team management, then this Essentials Guide is also for you.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "This file is available in the <jazzWSRoot>\conf\jazz directory."
A block of code is set as follows:
<oslc_cm:cmServiceProviders rdf:resource="https://localhost:9443/jazz/oslc/workitems/catalog"/>
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
>jbe -createPasswordFile buildPass.txt
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Click Apply to save the configuration".
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