We currently use Clearcase for our J2EE Development and evaluate a migration to RTC. There are different features we are missing in RTC SCM. The topmost is clearcase links.

We have a lot of components which are depending on each other. Currently we are building each component, storing the resulting jars in a baseline of this component. Call it CompA. Then we have a component CompB which needs this jar (or dtd/build artifacts etc...) . It currently has a clearcase link which references the jar with a relative clearcase link, e.g. ../../CompA /genlib/CompB.jar. The stream configuration of CompB tells us, which baseline of CompA should be used (scm feature). We definitely do not want that a developer or automated build of CompB has to load and build the sources of CompA just to get his dependencies resolved.

a. in general we have the idea that it is not good to store build artifacts in SCM. If so:
We have to invent/use something completely new (e.g. filesystem, maven) to store our build artifacts. But where do we store the information in CompB, which baseline/version of CompA should be used? In Maven this would be the pom-file, but then not RTC would hold the configuration information, but rather a second tooling, as a stream configuration for this would not be needed... . Or use a simple file share(ftp), store the configuration information in the stream of CompB (referencing baseline XYZ of CompA) and write a plugin for the IDE which loads from the share //builds/CompA/XYZ/CompA.jar based on the stream config? Is there something already around so we do not have to develop this by ourself?

b. But if we store the artifacts in SCM (hoping that someday we can delete files from scm, e.g. unused build results), how do we reference them? Loading the complete CompA in workspace of CompB is not an option, as we only want the build artefacts (e.g. jar file). For the build we could use load rules, but for the developer? We could automate by writing a plugin which loads the only specific directories from foreign components from out repository workspace. Again: Is there something already around so we do not have to deveop this by ourself?

Just to set the environment: We have hundreds of components with a huge depencency tree and an own framework used by all of them.