IBM Rational Jazz technology platform

Innovation through collaboration

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IBM® Rational® Jazz® is a new technology platform for collaborative software delivery. Uniquely attuned to global and distributed teams, Jazz is designed to transform how people work together to build software, making software delivery more collaborative, productive, and transparent. You can think of Jazz as an extensible framework that dynamically integrates and synchronizes people, processes, and assets associated with software development projects.

Jazz products are being built in a completely transparent manner on jazz.net (link resides outside of ibm.com). Jazz.net is our transparent development laboratory where you can see Jazz engineers utilising a range of Jazz tools to build the next version of our products. Jazz.net is also the place where you can ask questions directly of the development community, submit defect and enhancement requests and track these requests through Jazz dashboards, and find out what we are planning for the next release. We invite you to join the community, download the latest software, and contribute your ideas.

The Jazz platform enables collaboration among business stakeholders, subject matter experts, and any one who plays a role in the successful delivery of software – not just software professionals. This represents a transformational leap in the value of software delivery teams because they can now make software a focal point for driving innovation across the enterprise.

Jazz is not a product. Product offerings that are built on the Jazz platform can leverage a rich set of capabilities for team-based software development and delivery. The IBM Rational Team Concert™ family, IBM Rational Quality Manager, IBM Rational Requirements Composer (US), and IBM Rational Insight are the first offerings built on or significantly refactored for the Jazz platform.

IBM Jazz

Introducing the Jazz Platform for Collaborative Software Delivery (04:47 Min.) (US)
Learn how the IBM Rational Jazz platform makes software delivery more collaborative, transparent and productive.

What sets Jazz apart

Imagine you are part of global team of developers with offices in multiple countries spanning several time zones. Or you are part of a small, local team divided by differing work schedules or department affiliations.

In either case, you collaborate with business analysts, architects, developers, testers, lawyers, business stakeholders, and other subject matter experts separated by time, distance, or organisation.

What type of infrastructure would help you do your best work both individually and as a team? The Jazz technology platform is designed to answer these needs. Products built on the Jazz platform help teams to:

Collaborate. Jazz leverages social networking capabilities to enable broader and richer participation in the software delivery process and to overcome geographic and temporal gaps in the software lifecycle. Fast and easy team onboarding gives organisations the flexibility they need to leverage business and technical talent wherever it is located.
Automate. The Jazz platform empowers teams to automate individual and team workflows throughout the software lifecycle and to standardise processes without adding overhead. Jazz products automate repetitive tasks to improve team efficiency and to reduce time-to-value
Report. The Jazz initiative is focused on delivering real-time insight into programs, projects, and resource utilisation to help teams make better informed decisions and continuously measure progress against desired business outcomes.
Choose your own path. Jazz technology is built on open Web and OSGi standards and provides an open and extensible architecture designed to give you the flexibility to assemble your own software delivery platform, relying on your preferred vendors and solutions.

Jazz is architected to enable a broad range of clients. It has an open middleware interface, so you can install Jazz-based products using open source middleware, such as Tomcat™, Derby, and Jabber®; commercial middleware from IBM WebSphere®, DB2®, and Lotus®; or even third-party products from vendors, such as Oracle®

Join the Jazz jam session

The Jazz technology platform is being developed using a new approach called open commercial software development. Unlike traditional commercial processes where customers have little visibility into a new product or release until it is shipped, Jazz development takes place openly at jazz.net (link resides outside of ibm.com).

You can see the development as it progresses and download builds as they are available. The benefit of this transparency is that it allows you and other customers to become part of a continuous feedback loop that drives development decisions.

By providing your feedback early and often, you can influence release direction and priorities before these decisions are locked down.

To participate in the development of Jazz and Rational Team Concert or to download early releases of Jazz products, visit jazz.net (link resides outside of ibm.com).