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 Software Provisioning Can Enhance IT Development and IT Operations
As enterprise-class IT evolves—becoming a more efficient, integrated, and versatile instrument of business strategy—one key element of its evolution is software provisioning. Virtually all IT services rely on an underlying infrastructure of servers, which in turn require appropriate software configurations; through software provisioning, these servers can be quickly and accurately configured with a complete software stack, including one or more operating systems, middleware, applications, data, and drivers.
Software provisioning solutions are thus often associated primarily with IT operations. However, getting the highest business value from such solutions means integrating them with IT development as well. Many organizations keep the development and operational sides of IT logically and technologically separate—a consequence of a conventionally siloed organizational structure. This approach, however, can increase costs and delay application deployment, resulting in reduced overall efficiency for IT as a whole and reduced business value delivered by IT to the host organization.
A superior approach would integrate software development tools and software provisioning to ensure that, as new versions of applications  become available, they can be deployed to appropriate servers as quickly as possible. Such a scheme would drive business value by making the new features of applications available to end users in an accelerated manner, and also by eliminating potentially problematic areas, such as security shortcomings, which could have potentially serious consequences. As bugs were fixed in new revisions, those revisions would be automatically and immediately provisioned to relevant servers.
The software development process could be improved as well; the provisioning tool might, for instance, be capable of linking business goals with actual deployment data, if it integrated with the code development products.
IBM delivers just such a total solution. IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager (TPM), IBM's enterprise-class provisioning tool, features seamless integration with core software development solutions from the IBM Rational portfolio, including IBM Rational ClearCase, IBM Rational ClearQuest, and IBM Rational Build Forge. Together, Tivoli and Rational products can help organizations create new software builds more easily than ever, then leverage all the power and utility of software provisioning to deploy them, yielding a more unified, accurate, and accelerated overall process.
IBM Rational Solutions Are Tightly Integrated to Optimize the Development Process
How does this integration work? Begin by considering the Rational tools and how they function in combination to optimize software development.
One core element of the suite, IBM Rational ClearCase, is designed to generate complete version control tracking—a key requirement of any effectively governed software development project. With ClearCase, development teams can manage and control code assets at every stage in the development cycle. Yet, because ClearCase is a relatively lightweight solution which can be managed either locally or remotely over the Web, and because it supports multiple IDEs (integrated development environments), development engineers are empowered with comprehensive codebase control as well as the flexibility to choose the IDE best suited to their needs.
Closely integrated with ClearCase is IBM Rational ClearQuest, a leading project-management tool capable of assisting managers as they visualize progress in the overall software development project at any given point. ClearQuest enforces consistent process implementation at every stage, generating reports in real time as well as supporting audit tracking to ensure compliance with both government regulations and internal policies. Just as ClearCase helps engineers develop a superior codebase through version control, ClearQuest helps managers structure and trace the development process, step by step.
Finally, when code is deemed suitable for compilation into an actual application build, Rational Build Forge is the means by which that happens. Build Forge links any requisite scripts, tools, and code into a unified package, suitable for deployment. This enhances team collaboration and software consistency by eliminating errors of the type that might occur if the build process were handled manually. By integrating directly with the other two Rational tools, then, Build Forge serves as a logical implementer; once the code is ready, Build Forge transforms it into an application.
IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager Links with Rational Tools to Deploy New Software Builds
At this point the application is ready for deployment. And in the same way that automation and integration drove the software development process, they can now drive the deployment process via IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager.
TPM, a best-in-class provisioning tool with a comprehensive range of features, is capable of provisioning virtually any required software to virtually any node on the network. Via its fully automated, intuitive design, TPM allows administrators to build full software stacks or disk images—essentially snapshots of a hard drive—and install them over the network to any designated server or cluster of servers, even in cases where those servers have completely blank hard drives. Subsequent tailoring or modification is possible through the similarly automated installation of specific drivers to add extra functionality, such as supporting unusual peripherals or network interfaces.
In this way, TPM can be used to set up application servers initially with the software stacks they require. However, TPM continues to generate business value by provisioning new builds of those applications throughout the application lifecycle, as they emerge from the development team, to the appropriate servers—and fortunately, in this context, the level of integration between TPM and the Rational solutions is exceptionally comprehensive.
Imagine that the development team has utilized the integrated Rational tools to create a new build. TPM enters the story here by deploying the build files directly from ClearCase. Then, it updates the deployment record in ClearQuest, to illustrate that deployment has taken place in the software process tracking. Both processes take place automatically, improving both the efficiency and flexibility of the deployment process, since distribution can easily be scheduled for off-peak times such as night hours, when the business impact will be minimized.
What's more, the visibility and traceability of the application deployment is also enhanced. Through the tight TPM/Rational integration, business requirements for deployment can be automatically matched with actual deployment data, verifying that the right builds were installed on the right servers. And in the newest iteration of TPM, 5.1.1, these many benefits are all multiplied still further through new features which improve and extend TPM's automation. For example, Web Replay allows managers to create and record a prepared sequence of mouse clicks or text input to define a deployment process; any member of the IT staff with suitable access privileges can then subsequently “play it back” on demand.
Thus, TPM serves as a logical link between IT development and IT operations. It spurs business value for new applications by automating and accelerating application deployment, increasing traceability, linking deployment data to business requirements, and, most importantly, delivering new application features and bug-fixes to end users throughout the organization.
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