We are pleased to announce the IBM® Rational® DOORS® Next Generation* project on Jazz.net. Through this initiative we plan to shape and deliver capabilities that support collaborative requirements processes as part of the Rational solutions for systems and software engineering.

What is DOORS?

For more than a decade IBM Rational DOORS has been a leading requirements management tool that teams use to manage complexity, reduce costs, increase efficiency, and improve quality. With Rational DOORS, teams can improve requirements communication, collaboration, and verification throughout their organization and across their supply chains. The product is currently in release 9.3. A large community of Rational DOORS users is active at developerWorks.

Why this initiative?

Engineered systems are becoming more complex as they combine mechanical, electrical and software components. Systems are often delivered by a collection of suppliers and sub-contractors. More and more, teams that represent multiple engineering disciplines are designing, developing, integrating, and testing aspects of systems under development in collaborative, parallel activities. Agility in this context means effective management of complexity and collaboration. Rational solutions for systems and software engineering support those activities. Rational DOORS 9 has a key role in those solutions, and Rational DOORS Next Generation is to have a key role as well.

In recent years, our customers have mentioned the increasing importance of dissolving the barriers among engineering teams so that teams can collaborate better to achieve new levels of effectiveness. At the same time, teams want easier ways to take advantage of valuable but traditionally difficult aspects of requirements management, such as the controlled reuse of requirements.

From the perspective of teams that use Rational DOORS 9, we envision Rational DOORS Next Generation to be “recognizably DOORS” as it advances the state of the art in requirements management. We expect Rational DOORS Next Generation to support the engineering practices that have been used with Rational DOORS and are well-proven in both large and small scale projects. At the same time, we intend to make Rational DOORS Next Generation easier for global teams and their supply chains to use when getting started, when working in a web browser, and when working as part of a larger engineering solution.

It’s our plan that Rational DOORS Next Generation will share a Jazz™ Team Server with other solution components. The benefits of sharing a Jazz Team Server include the following:

• A commercial database
• Shared user administration
• Licensed capabilities that are shared across tools in similar ways as the V3.0.1 applications for the Rational solution for Collaborative Lifecycle Management
• Streamlined and common user interface conventions

We expect Rational DOORS Next Generation to work with other Rational products, including IBM Rational Team Concert™, IBM Rational Quality Manager, and IBM Rational Rhapsody Design Manager. We expect improved integrations with other products from IBM and other companies that are based on Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC).

It’s our goal that the web client will be more functional than the current Rational DOORS Web Access product, and we anticipate that many requirements analysts will be able to work exclusively in the web client. We plan to continue offering a rich client that runs on Microsoft® Windows®. We expect this local client to provide a better user experience when working with large specifications.

For teams that are new to Rational DOORS and perhaps are moving from spreadsheets or other requirements management tools, we expect Rational DOORS Next Generation to be an accessible, natural part of their engineering lifecycle solution for global teams.

How is Rational DOORS Next Generation being built?

We are following two parallel development tracks so that Rational DOORS can benefit from Jazz technology components and integration services. The first path is to integrate releases of Rational DOORS V9 with other tools by using linked lifecycle data as defined in the OSLC specifications. The goal is to provide improved support for multi-product solutions. For example, a change management system can drive a requirements change management process in Rational DOORS 9.3. This integration works with Rational Team Concert, IBM Rational ClearQuest®, and IBM Rational Change. Other integrations that are based on OSLC are also planned.

The second path is Rational DOORS Next Generation, which benefits from Jazz integration services and the Jazz Team Server.  An early milestone of Rational DOORS Next Generation is available for download. This milestone truly is early: it comes before the first beta, which, as you can see in the release plan summary, is planned for later this year. Because we practice transparent commercial development, you can find these development resources on Jazz.net:

• Early and frequent milestones, which you can download , try, and provide feedback about to the product team
• The release plan summary**
• Most of the “live” requirements
• The“live” development plans and project dashboards
• The “live” work item system, including defects, enhancements, and plan items
• A forum where you can interact with product management, developers, and others using Rational DOORS Next generation

How does DOORS Next Generation fit in the Rational family of requirements tools?

Rational DOORS Next Generation builds on and extends the requirements management capabilities that were developed as part of Rational solution for Collaborative Lifecycle Management to support the capabilities and processes for effective systems engineering and high-compliance IT. Rational DOORS Next Generation includes these components:

• A rich client that is based on Rational DOORS 9.
• A web client that is based on IBM Rational Requirements Composer. Rational Requirements Composer continues to offer a web client only.
• A requirements management application that runs in the Jazz Team Server, which is extended based on Rational Requirements Composer.

Rational DOORS and Rational Requirements Composer bring different strengths to requirements management activities. In Rational Requirements Composer, you have more ways to express requirements information visually and evolve requirements information from informal and disorganized to formal and actionable. In Rational DOORS, you have unparalleled support for managing complexity because you can create specifications in modules of information. Rational DOORS Next Generation embraces both heritages.

The initial release of Rational DOORS Next Generation is not a migration target for teams making extensive use of Rational DOORS 9.  Instead it’s designed to interoperate with DOORS 9 and demonstrate the benefits of this next generation solution.  We anticipate this initial release will be used for evaluations and pilot projects, smaller sub-projects in organizations where DOORS is used today, and across supply chains.

You can learn more about the Rational requirements management family of products in this RM family summary and this article exploring DOORS 9 and DOORS Next Generation.

How can you participate?

On behalf of the Rational DOORS Next Generation team, we welcome you to the project. Download our initial builds, try them, and give us feedback. As specialists in the requirements domain, we know that deep, effective customer and stakeholder involvement is key to developing successful products. We look forward to collaborating with you to strengthen the role of Requirements Management in the systems and software delivery lifecycle.

Richard Watson
Senior Product Manager, IBM Rational DOORS

Daniel Moul
Senior Offering/Market Manager
Rational Offering and Strategy Delivery

Notes

*DOORS Next Generation is an initiative, not a product name.

**Our lawyers would like us to remind you that these are not finalized plans or commitments, but just work in progress, and plans are subject to change without notice. See the Terms of Use.