Customers using or evaluating IBM Rational Team Concert (RTC) should be aware that they can integration Rational Team Concert with Subversion configuration management rather than using the default of DB2 or Oracle.
RTC 2.0 and Subversion 1.5/1.6 plus Subclipse 1.6 was used for the Rational Team Concert / Subversion integration demonstrated shown below. Note Subclipse 1.6 was imported into the RTC Eclipse client.
Following the instructions in the online help (available from the client at "Integrating -> Rational Team Concert and Subversion -> Linking work items to Subversion repositories").
Essentially, Bugtrac properties are added to the subversion project directory so that when a commit is made, a work item field is available on the commit dialog. This field is available on any commit dialog, be it Subclipse, tortoise or other products that recognise a bugtrac property.
Fig 1 - Subclipse dialog showing Work Item (Bugtrac) field
Note that there can be a few problems... RTC eclipse comes with links to Subclipse 1.2, which is getting old. Using Subversion 1.5 on the evaluation PC the preferred Subclipse would have been 1.4. Checkouts from Subclipse worked but updates and commits caused errors.
This resulted in an upgrade to SVN 1.6 and Subclipse 1.6. Updates now worked but there were still problems with commits both within Subclipse and Tortoise. Eventually the problem came down to a directory which had the permissions incorrectly set (no read or write access) on my "secret" directory. Suspect the problem lay with my situation rather than SVN 1.6 or Subclipse.
The end integration was unimpressive "nothing to show what files had changed within the new revision. This was because the "Update Links" had not been implemented" see Fig 2. There is a process which runs to automate this but initially it is better to update manually as you can visually see something actually happening.
Fig 2 - Update Links in context menu in Jazz SVN Connections.
After the links have been updated, the work item shows subversion information in the "links" tab. See Fig 3
Fig 3 - Open the revision associated with the task
This will open the history for the revision (and all previous revisions) in a history tab. See Fig 4. From here a file versions can be compared. So we can see that revision 15 was made up of two changes - test2.tx was added and design.doc was modified.
Fig 4 - Subversion revisions
Despite the challenges getting it to work, the end result is very good.
Using Subversion as the source control tool with RTC is a preferred way of configuring RTC compared to the recommended databases such as SQL Server or DB2. Of course, you still need a database for all of the other data created in RTC. But using subversion gives the best of both worlds. You can access source code both within Eclipse and outside of it. If you decide to move away from RTC then your code is easily available. If you have code tools that have not yet been moved to eclipse then these can access code via a subversion working directory and eclipse can be used for managing tasks.
Sincere thanks to John Norris, a Clearvision associate, for putting the time and effort into this article.
Clearvision offer Rational Team Concert license discounts along with training, support and products for both Subversion and RTC... have you thought about using UCM with Subversion? |
As you may already know IBM Rational have officially announced that ClearCase LT will be end of life soon.
Many Clearvision customers are calling to ask the same question...
'What are our options when ClearCase LT is no longer supported?'
'How can we migrate the data held in ClearCase LT to another CM tool?'
In answer to the question of which solution to choose, there are a variety of options:
- Upgrade to full IBM Rational ClearCase. The main disadvantage here is the increased cost, not just in terms of license upgrade but also ongoing support and maintenance. Rational are trying hard to help customers however some have voiced strong concerns and are looking at this as an opportunity to move to a lower cost, faster alternative such as the Open Source solution Subversion (SVN).
- Migrate to Rational Team Concert (RTC). Rational are keen to promote Rational Team Concert and would prefer prospects to go to RTC rather than full ClearCase (because RTC is the future for IBM Rational). There is no doubting the potential of RTC, however once again there is an increase in cost and infrastructure (hardware and support) plus the migration effort.
- A Non-Rational solution. While there are a wide variety of options, customers often choose either open source subversion (most cost effective), Microsoft Team Platform (pure dot Net development shops) or Accurev.
The most common alternative for Clearvision ClearCase LT customers (in order of popularity) is;
- Subversion with UCM4SVN (maintains the similarities of ClearCase UCM) plus CQ2SVN if also using ClearQuest which saves having to migrate their change management solution too. For those users who have not invested in a change management tool, Jira has become a widely accepted, cost effective solution which integrates with Subversion.
- CodeBeamer or Rational Team Concert for companies who appreciate the value of Collaboration tools i.e a single interface for users regardless of the underlying version control tools
- ClearCase FULL, although incentives are being offered to go this route, users are concerned about the long term viability of ClearCase
How to migrate data from ClearCase LT?
Often the challenge is not how to migrate data from within ClearCase LT but how to migrate integrations and in-house developed tools connected to ClearCase LT, one of the most common of which is Change Management. ClearCase LT users who also use IBM Rational ClearQuest often have the tools integrated, losing this interaction will damage business processes and mean re-education for users. The Ready for Rational tool CQ2SVN offers ClearCase LT users the opportunity to migrate to Subversion whilst maintaining the integration with their existing ClearQuest installation.
How can Clearvision help?
Migration from ClearCase LT can appear trivial however have you considered the timescales involved, whether testing is required, how to prepare the users, what to do if the migration fails? The impact and cost of a failed migration can be high, especially if release deadlines are affected. Clearvision can plan and run your migration, also helping with the installation, training and support for new tools such as Subversion (SVN).
If you would like to know more about migrating from ClearCase LT and the cost savings associated with tool choices such as ClearCase Full, RTC or Subversion, please contact
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Recently Subversion 1.6.4 and Subversion 1.5.7 were released because a security problem has been identified in all earlier version of Subversion (SVN) i.e. all versions of Subversion prior to 1.5.7 and also Subversion 1.6.0-1.6.3.
The security problems are described in:
http://subversion.tigris.org/security/CVE-2009-2411-advisory.txt
For those of you who find descriptions like "heap overflow" a little hard to understand, the bottom line is unless you upgrade to 1.5.7 or 1.6.4/5, hackers can upload a highly privileged program onto your Subversion server with the intent of doing harm or accessing your data. Following access to your server they can also exploit your client machine so Subversion needs to also be upgraded there too.
The software skills required to do this hack are not particularly advanced and although the security hole has been found and plugged the vulnerability has been widely publicised.
The advice of Clearvision is to upgrade. If you are using Subversion 1,5.x an upgrade to 1.5.7 is easy and quick – alternatively you can move to Subversion 1.6.5 – its the latest and greatest...
For further advice, Subversion Consulting, Subversion Training and Subversion Support please contact Clearvision. |
Git is an open source, distributed version control system designed to handle small and large projects with speed and efficiency.
Every Git clone is a full-fledged repository with complete history and full revision tracking capabilities, not dependent on network access or a central server. Branching and merging are fast and simple to do.
The 2009 Git user survey is now available, it's anonymous, but all information provided (raw data) will be publicly available on the Git Wiki, at http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitSurvey2009, to allow for independent analysis. Note that people completing the survey may skip questions as they like.
You can return to this survey after submission, and correct it, or complete questions.
http://tinyurl.com/GitSurvey2009
http://www.survs.com/survey?id=2PIMZGU0&channel=Q0EKJ3NF54 |
Clearvision have released CB2SVN, an Intland CodeBeamer integration for the Open Source solution Subversion.
Clearvision is proud to add CodeBeamer to their successful range of Subversion Configuration Management integrations. In addition to CQ2SVN (IBM Rational ClearQuest Subversion Integration) and Jira2SVN (Atlassian Jira Subversion Integration) Clearvision has now added the already successful collaborative development tool CodeBeamer.
It is essential to enable tracking of file 'change sets' between your change management solution (Jira, ClearQuest, CodeBeamer) and your version control tools e.g. Subversion, Git, Mercurial and IBM Rational ClearCase.
CB2SVN enables users to record modified Subversion files and comments within a CodeBeamer Tracker record quickly and easily. CB2SVN minimises opportunities for human error. Once the change is complete, the user is able to automatically change the state of the record without using CodeBeamer itself.
The integration between CodeBeamer and Subversion is bi-directional so also enabling users to also record CodeBeamer Tracker record information against Subversion revision history.
Unlike existing Subversion plug-ins for CodeBeamer, CB2SVN extends functionality and secures end-user compliance in several key areas;
- Strengthens the existing integration by encouraging or enforcing process
- Removes the opportunity for human error
- Increases development speed by proactively providing accurate and appropriate tracker records
- Bi-directionally integrates CodeBeamer tracker records within a Subversion attribute
Add Collaboration for Subversion, Mercurial and Git
CodeBeamer is recognised as a world leading product in the software collaboration market. Contact
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for more information.
Clearvision has now made CodeBeamer available in a Virtual Amazon Cloud, the benefits are;
- Dramatically reduced cost of ownership
- No setup or install costs, running in less than 24 hours
- Secure access from around the world
- No backup concerns
- High availability
- Optionally fully managed environment
Why waste time and money buying and maintain hardware when a full software Collaborative environment can be running and accessible for any project size in just a few hours? Benefit from the economies of scale now and dramatically reduce your software and administration costs. |
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