IBM execs cite need to unify business goals, app dev

Las Vegas – At the IBM Rational Software Development Conference 2005 here on Monday, IBM executives cited the unification of business needs and software development as critical for enterprises.

The officials emphasized a team-based, process-oriented strategy for development.

“Better software translates into better business,” said Roger Oberg, marketing vice president of Rational Software within the IBM Software Group, as he opened the morning’s keynotes. Building better software requires participation of architects, business analysts, developers, testers, release managers, and others, Oberg said.

Today’s reality, in which ROI is vital, dictates that better alignment is needed between software and business, said Daniel Sabbah, general manager at IBM Rational. “Our task is to evolve patterns of success in software engineering,” Sabbah said.

An attendee said he agreed that business processes and software development need to be unified.

“That’s the only way that business knows what they need and what they’re going to get,” said attendee John Garis, Process Architect for Information Technology at The Hartford insurance company. He emphasized that he was not speaking on behalf of his employer.

The disconnect between users and software development has led to finger-pointing, according to Sabbah.

“We tend to treat operations as a wall over which we throw development operations and assets when we as developers are finished with them. We then argue incessantly over whose fault it is when they don’t work or don’t scale,” Sabbah said.

To help unify development with business needs, IBM is announcing a set of services that integrate the business view into the software lifecycle using Rational Unified Process templates and best practices, Sabbah said.

Specifically, the company unveiled software that automatically identifies and repairs problems in business applications to enable them to be fixed in minutes and hours rather than days or weeks, according to IBM. Offerings blend middleware from the Rational development and testing tools platform with Tivoli application management software.

Products being announced included IBM Problem Resolution Toolkit for Rational Application Developer and IBM Performance Optimization Toolkit for Rational Performance Tester. These are intended to enable a faster, automated process for problem identification in business applications. The packages will particularly benefit companies building an SOA, IBM said.

The tools gain troubleshooting capabilities from Tivoli’s Monitoring for Transaction Performance software for diagnosing and fixing transaction performance problems. The Tivoli software monitors application performance and quality while the application is live.

Service offerings also were unveiled, including IBM Standard Deployment Service for Rational Portfolio Manager, IBM Fast Track Deployment Service for Rational Portfolio Manager, and IBM Rational Project/Program Management Assessment Service. Rational Portfolio Manager provides business and development teams with a set of capabilities for planning and managing IT projects.

IBM Software Release and Deployment Service, meanwhile, helps users to more effectively use Rational ClearCase and ClearQuest with Tivoli Configuration Manager.