How to use the driver with a configuration management solution

"The goals of using CM are to ensure the integrity of a product and to make its evolution more manageable. Although there is overhead involved in using CM, it is generally agreed that the consequences of not using CM can lead to many problems and inefficiencies. The overhead of using CM relates to time, resources, and the effects on other aspects of the software lifecycle", Susan Dart, CMI

Purchasing and installing a version control tool like PVCS, ClearCase, RCS/CVS, Visual Source Safe or Continuus, is only a very small step in the series of steps needed to implement a configuration management solution.

The March Hare UD6/CMTOOL Driver overcomes one of the hurdles of using configuration management in a Uniface environment: accessing the source code.

However you must still plan which version control tool you wish to use, how you wish to use it, and what procedures you will put in place.

In order to give some idea of how UD6/CMtool may be used, this section details a fictitious development environment using Uniface and various source code managers.

Concurrent Version System (CVS) from GNU. CVS is distributed under a Free GNU license and can be obtained quite readily. Proceed here for instructions on using UD6/CMtool and Uniface with CVS.

ClearCase from Rational. ClearCase was declared the most popular Software Configuration Management tool in the market in August 1999 by IDC, for the 3rd year running. ClearCase is a high-end commercial change management tool which offers remote geographical support and integrated change requests. http://www.rational.com/clearcase Proceed here for instructions on using UD6/CMtool and Uniface with ClearCase.

PVCS Dimensions from Merant, provides a complete software configuration management solution, which is delivered with a process engine at its heart. Its support includes, parallel development, distributed engineering, build and release management, change management, configuration and workspace management, process management, object and repository management and incident management. http://www.merant.com/products/pvcs/dimensions/ . Proceed here for instructions on using UD6/Cmtool and Uniface with PVCS Dimensions.

eChange Man from Serena. eChange Man is another high-end commercial change management tool. http://www.serena.com Proceed here for instructions on using UD6/CMtool and Uniface with eChange Man.

PVCS Version Manager from Merant. PVCS Version Manager is a mid-range popular source code management tool. http://www.merant.com Proceed here for instructions on using UD6/CMtool and Uniface with PVCS.

Visual Source Safe from Microsoft. SourceSafe provides for true project level configuration control. http://msdn.microsoft.com/ssafe/ Proceed here for instructions on using UD6/CMtool and Uniface with Visual SourceSafe.