Industry

Energy Services

Solution & Services

Managed Testing Services

Mentoring

Tools

IBM Rational Team Concert (RTC)

IBM Rational Quality Manager (RQM)

IBM Rational Requirements Composer (RRC)

CASE STUDY

Managing a

Data Center Migration

with

IBM Rational Team Concert Background

A major utility company had plans to migrate several hundred

applications over to a new data center. The proposed workflow

had each application moving through development and test

environments before going out to production. A review board

had the final say in approving technical documentation and test

results before the transition was considered as "complete".

Challenges

Applications were scheduled for migration to a new data center

in phases. It was necessary to track the progress of these

applications thoroughly, as many of them relied on each other

to function properly. Management wished to review and

approve each of the applications as they moved through the

process to ensure that there was no oversight.

Strategy

Our plan was to develop a customized solution using IBM Rational Team Concert to track progress

and provide an audit trail for review board approvals. The goal was to have a centralized location

where all users could view, update and follow applications as they moved through the migration

process.

Solution

IBM Rational Team Concert (RTC) has many features that help organizations collaborate on their

projects in a simple and efficient manner. Our engineers were able to take a standard RTC project

and tailor it to match the client’s predefined workflow and requirements.

Work items are one of the main elements RTC uses for tracking progress and coordinating tasks

between users (i.e. Stories, Defects, Tasks). The tool gives users the ability to customize these

items, and even create new ones, in order to integrate with an organization’s workflow.

Working through the RTC Eclipse client interface, our engineers created a custom migration work

item to hold all of the necessary information for each individual application as it moved through the

different environments. Some of the custom attributes that were added include: Description Fields,

Parent Workstreams, Application Owners, Technical Points of Contact and Business Owners. This

allowed all members of the organization to search within RTC for pertinent information regarding

each application.

An "Approvals" tab was also added to this work item specifically for board members to record their

approvals. Application owners were able to attach all of the required documentation to the work item,

which was then viewed by each of the board members. This customization and workflow allowed for

a seamless experience between both parties.

All users had to adhere to the defined workflow, so by configuring the roles and permissions within

RTC we were able to ensure that application leads could not bypass the review board in order to

release to the production environment. We carefully constructed permissions to prevent a change in

status unless all board members provided approval. This gave management confidence that there

would be no oversight in any of applications that were using this system.

As part of the migration process, developers needed to make technical services requests to different

teams throughout the organization. This process took place so that the developers could build out

their applications in each environment. We customized a "Task" work item to allow these requests to

easily be forwarded to the proper groups. These Tasks could then be linked back to the "Migration"

work item to allow for complete visibility into the ongoing work for an application. We were able to

further streamline the process by implementing custom JavaScript code to pre-populate the

description field based on the type of Task requested.

RTC offers the ability to display project information via dashboard widgets. These widgets can

display charts and lists of work items so that, at a glance, users can see the overall progress being

made for the project. It also serves as a place where users can go to find out about their pending

tasks. We created “My Work” widgets to display outstanding work items based on a user’s role.

Agendas for the review boards were automatically populated under the "Review Board" dashboard

(Previously, the review boards would communicate via email and review documentation from a

shared drive). The creation of the "Review Board" dashboard allowed for “two-click” navigation to all

necessary information. Having everything that was required for approval in one place helped to

greatly improve the efficiency of the review process.

If there was a need to discuss any conflicts with the applications documentation or schedule it was

easily managed by using the comments section in RTC. Much of the back and forth dialogue took up

an excessive amount of time during the Review Board meetings. Teams now have these

discussions virtually, prior to the meetings, in RTC. Review Board meeting times were reduced from

hours to just minutes.

After the project area was configured and released to users, RTTS was able to mentor several client

resources so that they could step into the administrator role. Providing guidance and documentation

on how to manage the projects going forward was an important step in setting them up for success

in using the tool. We left the client capable of applying the framework used in the migration project to

other projects that may need customization and tracking in the future.

Benefits

Streamlined the review process by allowing Board members “two-click” navigation to their review material

via RTC dashboard widgets.

Reduced the amount of time spent in Review Board meeting from hours to minutes. All of the preliminary

discussions and documentation review now take place within RTC.

Enabled visibility into the progress of individual tasks associated with each application as well as the

project as a whole.

Provided an audit trail for all activity associated with the applications to be migrated.

Mentored client resources in both using and administering the tool so that they can grow as new projects

arise.

RTTS is an IBM Premier Partner. Since 1996, RTTS has been an education & consulting partner

with IBM – implementing solutions and providing educational services around IBM’s Rational

Software testing tools. RTTS has worked with the Rational team to develop top-notch solutions

around their excellent toolset.

For more information about our solutions and services, go to www.rttsweb.com

copyright Real-Time Technology Solutions, Inc. 2014