Building a Case for ALM Middlewar
Integrated ALM is popularly known as End-To-End ALM as per some vendor websites but there are very few vendors who actually are able to deliver the promise of point-to-point integration architecture. Here is where ALM Middleware can help achieve an Integrated ALM for a mixed vendor tools environment. Typically in a software development process, various tools are used both for managing the development process as also for the actual creation, testing, building and deployment of software codes.
The concept of Integration Middleware addresses all the requirements of Integrated ALM completely and adds on some amazing benefits to any enterprise. It consists of software components that connect disparate software applications. It consists of a set of services that allows multiple processes running on one or more machines to interact. Application Lifecycle Management Integration Middleware is the glue software between varieties of different tools used throughout application development lifecycle. It mediates between ALM tools in a number of ways to achieve transformation and routing of data, propagation of change impact by relating data from one tool to another, orchestration of software development lifecycle process flows and integrated reporting.
ALM Integration Middleware technology based on Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) architecture can help in viewing artifacts managed by one Tool from another Tool. It can create relationships between artifacts for traceability with change impact analysis or even automate a process cutting across the tool boundaries and implement a complete ALM lifecycle without a break. It can also help manage Projects and Resources across the tools, assist in creating Cross tools Analytics and Dashboards. Essentially an Integrated ALM system should be able to produce a Test compliance report for the end customer that can show the list of Customer Requirements, Change Requests and Issues, traced to Test cases and individual Test runs. And finally, the Test run results should show that they have all passed. To produce such a report requires retrieving information from various tools including Requirements Management, Issues/ Change Management, Test Management and Test Automation.
ALM Middleware is based on a standard set of web service based APIs. It can without any special requirement on the tools, integrate tools from different vendors, including internally developed tool, thereby protecting all the tool investments by the enterprise. It allows for the integration of multiple tools from different vendors for the same function. For instance requirements Management may be covered by any combination of tools from IBM/ Rational (Requisite Pro, DOORS, and Requirements Composer), Microfocus/ Borland (Caliber-RM). What is perhaps even more beneficial is that it can support simultaneous usage of multiple tools from multiple vendors in a single tools ecosystem. This allows enterprises to select the best tools available in the market without locking themselves in a single vendor solution.
Integration business rules change over time for reasons such as the ever evolving business conditions, group dynamics, and development methodologies. ALM solutions such as Middleware allow creation and management of these rules independent of the individual tool adapters. Unlike point-to-point integrations where the logic is hard coded in the integration codes, middleware adapters do not have any embedded business rules. This eliminates the necessity of development resources for changing the integration codes and reduces the change implementation time drastically from weeks to hours.
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