IBM announced IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform 7.0 desktop products to help global development teams better design, deploy and manage the delivery of software and systems architectures with an emphasis on lifecycle quality.

The offerings help customers take advantage of reliable architectural design to deliver software and services with greater efficiency -- especially in geographically diverse and decentralized environments often found in service-oriented architectures (SOA).

As customers adopt SOA to transform their businesses, they are challenged with mapping their enterprise architectures and business processes to IT services architectures and automating and coordinating various interrelated services. In addition, more and more systems teams, like those developing aircraft systems or electronics products, need to interact with the IT systems, manage co-development complexity and meet new compliance regulations. Increasingly, customers are looking for ways to use open source products in their software delivery.

The IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform 7.0 desktop products is a comprehensive set of Eclipse-based offerings and best-practices processes that help customers govern the process of software and systems delivery and tighten the relationship between IT and line of business. The offerings:

• Accelerate SOA results with sound architectural design and automated service delivery.
  

• Ensure global architectural integrity including support for packaged applications.
  
  
• Simplify modular systems development with improved hardware and software modeling and standards support.
  
  
• Improve the adoption of IBM Rational products based on the latest Eclipse community standards with improved modularity and openness.

ARS Computer und Consulting GmbH is a systems integrator and consultant company based in Germany that has been working with IBM around Eclipse since 2001. ARS teaches and coaches customers on their development and software architectures. ARS customers rely heavily on IBM Rational functionality in a multitude of projects from simple J2EE web projects to sophisticated SOA approaches.

"When IBM donated Eclipse five years ago, we were thrilled by the possibilities of an open and universal platform to build, blend and integrate development tools from various vendors and open source projects -- and with today's launch, it is here to use," said Joachim E. Gucker, COO of ARS. "The new delivery platform gives customers freedom of choice. It starts with an IBM-supported pure and current Eclipse environment and grows non-disruptive to completeness with the ability to use the integrated functionality of one of several Rational products. The result is a stunningly flexible and powerful development environment that adapts in the same way an SOA-based system would."

Today's announcement builds upon the January release of Rational Systems Developer and the June release of IBM Rational Software Development Platform 7.0 Team tools -- that enable better development team collaboration through the breaking down of organizational silos -- helping customers improve delivery times, lower costs and improve software quality.

"Our customers need to empower their development teams to more effectively design and implement the 'architecture' in SOA," said Danny Sabbah, general manager, IBM Rational Software. "The Rational Software Delivery Platform gives our customers the tools they need to get faster SOA results with global integrity -- ensuring that their IT processes and policies are in line with their business transformation objectives -- which is critical to their success."

The new and enhanced Version 7 products and services in the IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform desktop products include:

• IBM Rational Elite Support for Eclipse -- provides enterprise level support for Eclipse open source development framework to address the needs of a broad range of practitioners from novice to enterprise to expert developers. IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform 7.0 desktop products will install directly into existing Eclipse 3.2 environments offering the maximum flexibility and ability to use the right tool for the need at hand.

• IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software -- an IDE for developers to design, develop, analyze, test, profile and deploy SOA, Java, J2EE, and portal applications.
  
  
• IBM Rational Software Architect -- provides model-driven development for software architects and model-driven developers creating SOA, J2EE and portal applications.
  
  
• IBM Rational Software Modeler -- a UML2.1-based visual modeling and design tool for architects, systems analysts and designers who need to ensure that their specifications, architectures and designs are clearly defined and communicated.
  
  
• IBM Rational Systems Developer -- an Eclipse-based systems design and development tool supported by a partner ecosystem that includes plug- ins that enable systems and software architects and model-driven developers to create well architected C/C++, Java, J2SE and CORBA-based applications leveraging UML 2, analysis and development capabilities. IBM Rational Systems Developer allows customers to build and manage Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) views and work products.
  
  
• IBM Rational Functional Tester -- an automated functional and regression testing tool for testers and GUI developers who need control for testing Java, VS.NET, web-based and packaged applications.
  
  
• IBM Rational Functional Tester Plus -- a functional and regression testing solution bundle that allows teams to test a wide variety of software applications, including Java, web, web-services, .NET and thick client technology-based applications.
  
  
• IBM Rational Manual Tester -- a manual test authoring and execution tool that promotes test step reuse to reduce the impact of software change on testers and business analysts.
  
  
• IBM Rational ClearQuest and Functional Testing -- a quality and change management bundle that offers testing teams an integrated solution for test management, defect management and automated and manual functional testing.
  
  
• IBM Rational Professional Bundle -- includes all the desktop tools your enterprise needs to design, construct and test J2EE, portal and SOA applications on both Windows and Linux, as well as test .NET applications.
  
  
• IBM Rational Data and Application Modeling Bundle -- provides IBM Rational Data Architect 7.0 and IBM Rational Software Modeler 7.0 combining enterprise data modeling, integration and development capabilities with UML visual application modeling tools.

Rounding out the portfolio of offerings, IBM has integrated product support for the desktop products including WebSphere Services Registry Repository, Tivoli Component Application Manager and WebSphere Business Modeler. Some Rational team product offerings are now integrated with the desktop products to help companies get SOA results faster using a services architecture model. Rational RequisitePro is integrated with WebSphere Business Modeler for improved efficiency. Rational Unified Process guidance (RUP for SOMA) improves design of the services architecture, and the Rational Method Composer SOA Plug-in allows for integration with an SOA governance infrastructure.

IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software and IBM Rational Software Architect, IBM Rational Performance Tester, IBM Rational Functional Tester, IBM Rational Manual Tester, IBM Rational Software Modeler, IBM Rational Systems Developer, IBM Rational Software Modeler include autonomic tools, based on open industry standards, that help developers capture and pinpoint the root cause of problems -- by importing and analyzing multiple log files based on a customized catalog of problem symptoms so they can be fixed based on historical knowledge. The "system catalog" is essentially an automated cheat-sheet that operations staff can use if these problems come up when deploying and running the application, saving time and money.

In related news, IBM Business Partners are improving the quality and efficiency of software and systems delivery. More than a dozen IBM Business Partners are announcing their offerings have been validated on the new version 7 platform as part of the Ready for IBM Rational Software program. And available for the first time -- customers can now purchase Rational products from Programmer's Paradise website, mail order catalog and call center.