Software

"RAM is surprisingly mature and comprehensive for a version 1.0 product. Its strengths include great flexibility in dealing with enterprise-scale process complexities, a collaborative perspective on service consumption, and leading capabilities in the support of multiple target environments. Its current weaknesses include limited out-of-the-box support for business processes, limited support for prepopulation of service and other assets, and limited support for things like projects or architectures. IBM has demonstrated through RAM that it has learned to field and evolve high-quality, feature-rich software very aggressively, an indicator that IBM is positioned to close these gaps quickly."

--Larry Fulton, The Forrester Wave (TM): SOA Service Life-Cycle Management, Q1 2008 (link resides outside of ibm.com), 28 January 2008

"Searching and previewing asset artifacts is much better in RAM ... user interface is superior ... It is easy to import assets into development environment; no need to download separately and then import into source control. ... Deploying RAM would reinvigorate the Asset Based Development process."

-- Anonymous customer, comparing RAM with a major competitor's product

"Rational Asset Manager not only handles versioned assets, it enables you to track versioned artifacts back to the assets that were used to create them. You will find it is now a lot easier to maintain existing assets and create new versions rather than waste your time and the company's money recreating assets that already exist and can be reused. And even better, you can evaluate service assets before downloading and using it by browsing the asset at the artifact level or reading ratings by other developers, feedback, and statistics on the asset's usage.

"Downloading an asset that looks promising is easily accomplished through a Web or Eclipse client. With one click, the asset is inserted directly into an Eclipse-based [Integrated Development Environment] like IBM Rational Application Developer, IBM Rational Software Architect or IBM WebSphere Integration Developer.

"Creating an asset is equally simple since the process is automated. Using a wizard in either Eclipse or a Web-based interface, you just select your asset type and category, establish its relationships and identify which artifacts to upload. You can also specify additional tags to make it easier to search for that asset in the future. The wizard guides you through the process and necessary steps, according to the type or asset you are creating. Before the asset can be submitted to the repository, RAM will automatically invoke whatever review and approval processes have been put into place. Once the asset has met the necessary requirements for approval and acceptance, RAM notifies the appropriate parties about the new asset. ... [I] productivity, communication, ROI, development costs, and quality are important to you and your organization, you can't afford to not have RAM in your tool arsenal."

--Rikki Kirzner, Reuse 101: Why You Need to Centrally Manage Your Software Assets (link resides outside of ibm.com), DevX Skillbuilding for IBM developerWorks, 9 July 2008