If you’ve been following our progress on the IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management v7.0 release here on jazz.net you can see that we are in the final stages of our release candidate milestones. Release candidates are functionally complete, meaning all the features targeted for v7.0 have been delivered to the release and we have entered the final quality and upgrade migration testing phase of the ELM v7.0 release. We just delivered RC2 to jazz.net, and we are continuing to test upgrading using real customer data and upgrade scenarios. The purpose of this post is to highlight some of the things you might do to prepare for the v7.0 release in the platform support area as well as highlight new deployment topologies enabled in ELM v7.0.

Read the release-level New & Noteworthy documents published with RC1 and RC2 to learn about the new features in V7.0. For example, you could start with Engineering Workflow Management RC2, where you also will find a link to the related docs for other applications.

Server-side changes

Recommended topology changes

DOORS Next: The big news coming in ELM v7.0 is about requirements data scalability. ELM v7.0 moves the main work of storing versioned information and querying it out of Apache Jena and into your relational database–adopting the same Jazz Platform storage used by EWM and ETM. This significantly reduces the hardware resources needed for the RM server while putting more load on the database server. So for some deployments, it will make sense to use a dedicated RM DB instance as shown in the diagram below. We will be publishing updated “Golden Topology” and ELM v7.0 performance papers, which will provide more detail.

LDX and GCM on separate servers from JTS: For optimal scale, we recommended separate servers for the Global Configuration Management (GCM) and Link Index Provider (LDX) services (rather than using the same server as the JTS, which is the default configuration).

Combined EWM and Rhapsody Model Manager server: With v7.0 RMM is presented in the launchpad and installer as the Architecture Management extensions for the CCM application, and indeed you can deploy it that way. For administrators it means one less server; for practitioners, it offers new flexibility to manage models, source code, documentation, and other files in the same SCM components, streams, baselines and snapshots.  Don’t worry. It’s still possible to deploy an EWM Server for the sole purpose of getting just the RMM capability if desired.

“Platform” changes

ELM v7.0 is a major release.  There are significant platform changes between v6.0.6.x and v7.0 that will impact the version of operating systems, browsers, application servers, and application run-times which are supported.

When v7.0 is released, you will be able to run a software compatibility report here for the v7.0 version. To help you get a head start, I’ll address some of the major changes to aid in planning for an on-premise upgrade to IBM ELM v7.0. Another way to keep track of planned platform changes is to track our development dashboard on jazz.net which shows the individual work items that track proposed platform adds and drops for a given release:

Platform Adds and Drops in ELM v7

Below are some of the important platform changes to help you prepare for ELM v7.0.

Server-side considerations

Tomcat is no longer supported: For many 6.x releases now, we have been shipping WebSphere Liberty as a replacement for Tomcat. WebSphere Liberty has a smaller footprint and is easy to deploy. For a few releases, we’ve been recommending everyone to move off Tomcat, so if you are still using Tomcat as your application server you will have to upgrade your CLM v6.x deployment to WebSphere Liberty before you upgrade to ELM v7.0.  Traditional WebSphere Application Server is of course also supported, however, some advanced features are only available with Liberty (for example, support for clustering in EWM and ETM).

No change to Java: ELM v7.0 continues to be built and run with IBM Java 8

Linux, Windows OS for servers:

As shown in the table above, to enable the upgrade to ELM v7.0 we provide a bridge to a common server and database version between the latest v6.0.6.x release and v7.0 to allow an existing deployment to be upgraded in place.  Then when you are on v7.0 you can then upgrade your infrastructure to take advantage of new performance such as tuning for Oracle 19c for maximum DOORS Next and ETM performance.

The Jazz Team Server in ELM v7.0 adds support for RedHat v8.x and drops RedHat v6.x on x86 architectures.  So if you are already on RedHat v7.0 today you can upgrade to ELM v7.0. Windows Server 2019 support was added in ELM v7.0, and support for Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2016 continues. So most customers can upgrade to ELM v7.0 from their existing Windows Server version they are running on their CLM v6.x deployment. For SUSE Linux, we dropped SUSE 11.x and continue support for SUSE 12.x in ELM v7.0.

z/OS servers:
ELM v7.0 supports z/OS versions 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4, and we dropped support for z/OS version 1.3 and 2.1.

IBM i servers:
In the ELM v7.0 release, we continue to support IBM i 7.2 and 7.3.  We dropped support for the older IBM i 7.1 and DB2 for IBM i 7.1 release.

Database Platform Changes

In ELM v7.0 we made major updates to database version support.

Oracle: 19c is highly recommended for scaling as we take advantage of Oracle optimizers for scaling DOORS Next. Although you can run Oracle 12c R1 and R2 with ELM v7.0, support for these versions is provided to facilitate upgrading. Only Oracle version 19c achieves the full performance gains for DOORS Next. Note that we skipped Oracle 18c; it is not supported in either ELM v6.0.6.1 or v7.0.

IBM Db2: We bundle and recommend 11.5 – but 11.1 is also supported. Note: that in Db2 11.5 there are only three editions, Community, Standard, and Advanced. We support and bundle Db2 Standard Edition with ELM v7.0 and customers can also run on Db2 Advanced Edition if they have purchased that version and deploy it with ELM v7.0.

Microsoft SQL Server: Support for SQL Server 2017 was added. SQL Server 2016 is also supported. We dropped SQL Server 2014. Note that if you expect to grow to have a significantly-sized deployment with configuration management enabled for requirements, tests, or models, we recommend you use one of the other databases.

EWM Server Side Integrations

Team Concert Jenkins Plug-in Integration: In the v7.0 release the Team Concert Plugin which you will be able to obtain here soon, will support Jenkins LTS 2.60.x through Jenkins LTS 2.164.x which means some much older Jenkins versions prior to v2.60.x will no longer be supported in EWM v7.0. Note that we did not change the name of the “Team Concert” plug-in on the Jenkins plug-in site as it runs on multiple releases that are still called IBM Rational Team Concert as well as the new IBM Engineering Workflow Management name introduced in our ELM v7.0 rebranding.

Git EWM Client/Server Integration: In EWM v7.0 our work item to Git integration adds support for Bitbucket in addition to existing support for Git, GitHub, GitLab and Gerrit. Bitbucket support is on-premise only, as we do not support Webhooks with Bitbucket today. We have also streamlined our support for Git* variants dropping support for older Git versions including GitHub 2.9. GitLab 8, GitLab 7, Git 1.7.9 and Gerrit 2.13, 2.12, 2.11 and 2.10 while adding support for the newest versions. We also are dropping older Git integration architectures to focus on our Node.js based integration architecture. This allows us to provide automated scripts for setting up the integration and reduce the complexity of setup. in this release, we drop EWM to Git integration architectures based on Apache Server 2.4.x and OpenSSH server 7x – You would need to plan to deploy our Node.js architecture in EWM v7.0.  (or move to it now on 6.0.x) to prepare for an ELM v7.0 upgrade.

Client-side considerations

Windows 7 clients: are no longer supported in ELM v7.0. Microsoft ends support for Windows 7 in January 2020. As a result of this, the ELM v7.0 release will no longer support Windows 7 clients. Most IT departments have moved off of Windows 7 or plan to do so before January 2020, but if you still require Windows 7 client support on IBM EWM you may wish to stay on a v6.0.6.1 release for continued Windows 7 client support.

Alternatively, you could take advantage of N-1 client compatibility and keep your Windows 7 clients on v6.0.6.1 while upgrading other Windows 10 client users to EWM v7.0 and running ELM v7.0 on your Jazz Team Server, GCM and Jazz Reporting Services.

macOS Clients: In ELM v7.0 we continue to support macOS as clients supporting the same versions of Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. For example, macOS versions that also support Safari 13 would include, macOS 10.13 High Sierra, macOS 10.14 Mojave, and the latest macOS 10.15 Catalina.

Web Browsers: The ELM v7.0 release will support the latest browser versions such as Firefox ESR 68, 60; Chrome 77, 76, 75; and Safari 13.  Microsoft’s latest Edge browser based on Chromium was not quite yet GA when testing was being finalized for ELM v7.0 so in this release we still support Internet Explorer 11.0 on Windows 10 and we expect to add Microsoft’s latest Edge Chromium-based browser in a future release. For optimal browser performance with ELM v7.0 on Windows 10 clients, we recommend using a Chrome (or Firefox) based browser on Windows 10 clients if you can as Microsoft is also moving to a Chrome-based rendering engine for Windows 10 going forward.

Eclipse IDE Support: If you are using IBM Engineering Workflow Management with an Eclipse-based IDE, the minimum Eclipse version supported in EWM v7.0 is Eclipse 4.4.2.  This means that any Eclipse IDE dependency in your tools must support Eclipse 4.4.2 or a later supported Eclipse version. EWM v7.0 supports Eclipse 4.4 through 4.8 and also adds support for Eclipse 4.11 as a P2 install option.  Eclipse 4.2 support was dropped in v6.0.6.1 so if you are already on v6.0.6.1, the upgrade to EWM v7.0 would not impact your Eclipse IDE tooling, integration and shell sharing support.

Note: In a future v7 release we anticipate moving our Eclipse minimum version to Eclipse 4.7 or later. Keep this in mind. For example, suppose you require Eclipse 4.4, 4.5 or 4.6 support through 2020 and 2021, and you want to take advantage of the DOORS Next improved performance in v7.0.  You might decide to upgrade to ELM v7.0 now rather than wait for v7. Next (the release after v7.0), which likely will drop support for Eclipse 4.4, 4.5 and 4.6. Details are subject to change and this is provided for longer-term planning guidance only.

Microsoft Visual Studio IDE Support: In the EWM v7.0 release we re-wrote our Visual Studio extension to support asynchronous loading for faster startup performance. EWM v7.0 will support Visual Studio 2015, 2017 and 2019. Support for Visual Studio 2012 and 2013 was dropped. Note that by default, Visual Studio 2019 blocks any synchronously auto-loaded extension.  As a side effect of the Visual Studio 2012/2013 drop, the corresponding minimum .NET framework requirement and the Visual Studio C++ run-time dependency for both Windows Shell and MSSCCI support are now .NET 4.6 framework and Visual C++ Re-distributable for Visual Studio 2015 respectively.

Some last, short Q&As

Can I upgrade just some Jazz applications to v7.0? Yes, you can as long as you also upgrade the Jazz Team Server, GCM, and Jazz Reporting Services to v7.0. For example, you might decide to upgrade EWM(RTC) to v7.0 and keep your DOORS Next application running at v6.0.6.1 against a JTS and JRS Server running v7.0. You would not be able to take advantage of the dramatic performance gains in RM in this setup, but it is possible to do since we support N-1 client compatibility in this release.

What about Rhapsody Design Manager (RDM)? RDM v6.0.6.1 is the last version we expect to release of RDM. If you are using RDM, we recommend you make plans to migrate to Rhapsody Model Manager (RMM) during 2020. You can upgrade the other ELM applications to V7.0 and use RDM 6.0.6.1 while planning and doing your migration.

Is dependency on Apache Jena completely eliminated in ELM v7.0? No. Some services still use Apache Jena, but the critical services for DOORS Next that depended on Jena and impacted scalability, have been moved to the Jazz Platform storage.

Do I need to get new licenses to run ELM v7.0? Yes. If you use Authorized User Term, Floating Term, or Token licenses, you must obtain new licenses from the IBM License Key Center and update your current licenses.  If you wish to use RDM v6.0.6.1 with ELM v7.0, you need to get new RDM licenses.

Come to Orlando for the IBM IoT Exchange (Engineering Academy) Join us at our biggest conference of the year in Orlando in March 2020. Experts from our product teams will be there to discuss all the latest information about IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management V7.0 and to listen to your experience and feedback.

For more information and for registration:

IBM IoT Exchange – March 2020 – Orlando Florida

Start planning today

Start your planning for our ELM v7.0 release today, so you can take full advantage of the performance and scale being delivered. ELM v7.0 is also the first release to showcase our investment in user interface modernization of the IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management portfolio. Stay tuned for more as we get closer to our ELM v7.0 release.

Thank you for continuing to grow with us.

Rolf Nelson
IBM Engineering Workflow Management Offering Manager