Install RTC on Windows or IBM i?

Jeff Berman (15●3●5) | asked May 19 '16, 6:33 p.m.
edited May 19 '16, 7:28 p.m.

Hi, I'm part of a small IBM i development team, with just four developers. I've been asked to install Rational Team Concert for source control and to create product builds. (We are also interested in using JIRA for managing issues, but I'm not yet sure how that will tie in with RTC.)

Anyway, I see that the IBM Installation Manager can be used on Windows and Linux to install Jazz/RTC, while it is a more complicated manual process on the i. To make things as simple as possible to install and update, would it make sense to install everything onto a Windows box and just do the builds on the i? If we go this route, are there any limitations or gotchas I should be aware of?

Thanks!

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Larry McCarthy (210●21●24) | answered May 20 '16, 3:22 p.m.

Hi Jeff,

We've done a number of RTC installs supporting IBM i using IBM i, Windows and Linux Jazz servers.

I don't find the installation of JTS, CCM and other servers on IBM i any more manual than on other platforms; it just uses ADDLICPGM rather than IM. The configuration script on the IBM i is (IMO) more automated than the JTS setup process. On the IBM i, you never have to install a database server (DB2 is "in there"), and most shops already have WAS installed on their IBM i, although you might need to upgrade it to a release that supports RTC.

If your Jazz servers are on another platform, you still need to install the RTC Base option and the Jazz Build toolkit option (with ADDLICPGM) on the IBM i to provide build engines/agents on the IBM i.

Anyway, either way works fine.

Ralph is correct; the RTC client shell-shares with RDi. There's nothing like the /z ISPF client for SEU... RDi is required for IBM i developers using RTC.

The most common gotchas I've seen:

When installing servers on IBM i, be aware that Java-based Jazz servers, WAS and DB2 need reasonable memory and CPU resources. Shops are often surprised by this when installing it on a typical less-than-1GB RAM / one-quarter-of-a-core development LPAR that currently supports (only) SEU/PDM or RDI's RSE server.
In old-school SEU/PDM shops, there may be some serious PTFs required to get the box up to an appropriate revision level of WAS, DB2 and Java to support a Jazz server installation, or even to support the Jazz build toolkit.
RTC's dependency-based build is amazing and practically magical. But be aware that you'll almost certainly need to dedicate a new-and-different source and object library structure to it. Separate libraries for files will make your life much easier.

Hope that helps,

Larry.

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Ralph Schoon commented May 20 '16, 3:59 p.m.

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Thanks for this valuable answer Larry!

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Matt Muller (598●1●30●72) | answered May 20 '16, 3:34 a.m.

Jeff - I can't answer you question about installation etc. (hope someone else will do this for you) but did wonder why you are not using RTC for managing you issues? RTC is capable of managing issues / defects as part of a full CLM / ALM solution?

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Jeff Berman commented May 20 '16, 11:22 a.m.

Matt: We already use JIRA for managing other non code-related tasks, so it seemed like a good idea to keep everything in one system. No sense hopping between two different task systems throughout your day if it's not necessary.

That being said, I'm not change management savvy enough yet to really know at this point how it should work (plus, I haven't even seen RTC yet). I guess I was picturing a workflow where a customer runs into a snag and Support creates a JIRA item for it. It is determined to be a bug, so a defect task is created for a developer, who then uses RTC to check code out against that JIRA ID.

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Ralph Schoon (62.7k●3●36●43) | answered May 20 '16, 4:22 a.m.
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I am not an I/Z expert either. For RTC, I am not aware of any limitations, regardless which platform you install the server.
Some components for the other applications (diagram rendering) are only available for Windows and Linux.

Usually my answer would be: install on the platform you are most comfortable maintaining.

Most of our deployment hints are for Windows/Linux. See https://jazz.net/wiki/bin/view/Deployment/RecommendedALMDeploymentTopologies6 . Make sure to understand which applications you want to install.

Note, for System I, I think you need the Rational Developer for........ formerly known as RDI and install the RTC client in there, as far as I know.

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Install RTC on Windows or IBM i?

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