GoMidjets was founded on the belief that our knowledge of IBM Rational ClearCase automation can be packaged as useful tools for developers and administrators. During the last year we’ve seen this belief becoming a reality.

Our customer list is steadily growing and our new partners are enthusiastic about helping even more companies improve their internal R&D processes by implementing our products.

In this issue you will find all about the latest developments, new product versions and technical information. On the occasion of launching CompBL 2.6 we also prepared a new webinars on Agile methodology, and a technical tip about comparing recommended baselines.

I hope you enjoy this newsletter. Feel free to contact me for any question or request you might have concerning this newsletter, our products, or our services.

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New Partners

We are happy to announce that two more partners have joined the GoMidjets’ growing distribution network.

CM-Logic

Located in the UK and Ireland – leading developers & resellers to the software community. www.cm-logic.com

CM Best Practices Consulting

Bob Aiello’s CM Best Practices Consulting (http://cmbestpractices.com) is a US based firm assisting clients with implementing source code management, build and release engineering including Devops.

We’re always looking for more partners, write to us for more information.

New Products

ClearCheck 2.1

The new ClearCheck 2.1 features a completely new reporting utility that allows ClearCase administrators to overview VOB’s health at a glance.

ClearCheck monitors ClearCase VOBs and alerts on any issue or problem. The new version includes upgraded reports, additional alerts, and report customization, as well support for Windows 7 and SSH on Unix/ Linux.

What’s new?

• Enhanced visual presentation of results in a useful table with color-coded icons for a quick review of the results: valid in green, warnings in yellow and errors in red. Watch a screenshot.
• Summary of errors and warnings and “at a glance” report that shows only warnings and errors.
• Presentable PDF and HTML reports that can be sent out to management or external consultants.
• Customizable report header
• Support: Windows 7, SSH on Unix/ Linux servers, complies with SOX security requirements
• Better integration with Windows scheduler for easier daily reporting
• New dynamic variables for tight integration with backup and storage systems (IBM, NetApp, EMC, HDS, Sun etc.)

Download now a 21 days full-feature trial version

CompBL 2.6

The new CompBL v2.5 offers many more comparison options and enhanced reporting. It allows users to compare the all-important recommended baselines – see the technical tip below for more details.

We have also significantly improved the version choice interface and the reports themselves are now clearer, visually pleasing and have new customization options that makes them useful to managerial roles in the organization.

What’s new?

• Compare recommended baselines
• Enhanced visual presentation of the results in a useful table with change summary. Watch a screenshot.
• Busy Manager’s Report: an overview of changed activities
• Customizable header for automatic release notes
• Version sort option for quick choice of versions for comparison
• Reports in HTML format
• Windows 7 support with Better integration with Windows scheduler for easier daily reporting

Download now a 21 days full-feature trial version

New Webinars

Recently we’ve recorded two webinars with Bob Aiello, author of Configuration Management Best Practices book.

1) How to be more Agile with Rational ClearCase

Concerns Agile, Continuous Integration (CI), Configuration Management and ClearCase challenges and our solution for real-time visibility on ClearCase UCM projects’ status. Click here to watch the replay

2) Best Practices for Getting Real-time Status on ClearCase UCM Projects

Concerns:

• Agile and Continuous Integration (CI) overview
• The ClearCase challenges regarding Agile CM
• CompBL  tutoria
• How to determine UCM status information
• How to automate generating of reports
• How to set and customize reports (Release Notes, Audit report etc.)

Click here to watch the replay

What’s New in IBM Rational Tools

ClearCase

Version 7.1.2 has been released recently. The latest release now supports Ubuntu 10.04, RedHat EL (RHEL) 5 Update 6 and RHEL 6. Click to learn more.

ClearQuest

Version 7.1.2 has been released recently. New fixes for UNIX and Linux released few days ago. Click to learn more.

RTC  3.0

Version 3 has been released recently and many new features are inside, including enhanced support for Agile planning, more flexibility on working with work items, improved dashboard and more. Click to learn more

GoMidjets In the News

The IBM Social Media Marketing blog features the GoMidjets story on how interacting with ClearCase specialists on DeveloperWorks helps us improve and validate our products.

Check it out: Creating a social business through DeveloperWorks: the GoMidjets story

Technical Tip: Comparing Versions of ClearCase Recommended Baselines with CompBL

A recommended baseline is a set of versions that have been identified as stable. This baseline establishes the current starting point for the project, and when you rebase or join a project this is the baseline that is used as the foundation for your development (or child) stream.

CompBL now allows you to view and compare recommended baselines, including composite baselines, creating an automatic report of all changes between the versions.

The Challenge

Each new recommended baseline replaces the previous ones, and ClearCase UCM does not keep a history of these changes. Users who wish to restore previous stable versions must therefore search for them manually, hoping they remember which was the baseline they previously used.

Solution Step 1: Install the Recommended Baseline trigger

In the CompBL 2.5 package we added a trigger that catches the event of marking a version as Recommended. The trigger was developed by the GoMidjets team and dozens of companies found it useful for the following reasons:

• It allows you to restore a previous stable version, for example when a major problem is discovered in the new one.
• It enables you to compare stable versions when looking for the sources of a serious bug.
• Keeps a history of Recommended Baseline creation for documentation purposes.

This trigger is a standard ClearCase trigger that can be installed by the ClearCase administrator.

If you don’t have the available expertise, GoMidjets offer an affordable professional service to help you. Write to us for more information.

Solution Step 2: Use CompBL to compare baselines

Once the Recommended Baseline trigger is installed, CompBL marks all recommended baselines for each stream. As illustrated in the following screenshot, baseline #3 is the current recommended baseline of SurveyIt_2.0_Integration stream, and the previous recommended baseline was #1.

What you can do with this information?

• Create a report comparing only recommended baselines.
• Automatic Release Notes for each recommended baseline. This supports continuous integration which is one of the principles of the Agile CM methodology.
• Send an automatic email to all developers when a new Recommended Baseline is available.
• For nightly builds – get an automatic report on the changes in each day’s build.
• Compare stable versions when looking for the source of a bug.