News

New CollabNet Framework Looks To Bring ALM Tools Together

• By John K. Waters
• December 13, 2011

CollabNet, the Brisbane, Calif.-based provider of distributed software development solutions, recently released a new integration framework for its TeamForge Agile ALM platform.

Dubbed CollabNet Connect, the framework is designed to let users "orchestrate and govern app delivery processes across commercial and open source ALM and cloud development tools," according to the company.

CollabNet Connect is now available for TeamForge 6.1.1, both on-premises and in the cloud. It comes pre-integrated with HP-QC, JIRA, Hudson, and other tools.

To fully explain CollabNet Connect, Lothar Schubert, the company's senior director of product marketing, turned to Forrester Research analyst Dave West, who wrote in an October 2010 report, "ALM is not dead -- it has become ALM 2.0+. ...ALM 2.0+ tools and strategies accept tool and platform heterogeneity, imposing a boundary above practitioner tools and encouraging ALM to interact with those tools in the context of work and harvest information for traceability, reporting and management."

"He's saying that ALM in the past was too limiting for organizations to address this diverse and ever changing need," Schubert commented. "ALM is now evolving into more of a pivot point for a variety of tools. This is the essence of CollabNet Connect."

"As ALM has matured, it has become less about bringing in a monolithic toolset and saying it's our way or the highway," added Chris Clarke, CollabNet's vice president of product management. "It has been increasingly about embracing best of breed tools, orchestrating and combining them while maintaining visibility. Interestingly, as things become more oriented around devops, and getting farther and farther downstream in ALM, the level of heterogeneity is increasing. As you get into things that are dependent more on the context within which they are being developed and deployed."

Connect makes it possible for developers to overcome JIRA scalability issues by providing a framework into which separate JIRA servers may be incorporated using the TeamForge services distribution capabilities, Clarke explained. Shubert also emphasized that the framework is also available for custom and partner integrations.

The framework also brings the Git version control system into "an enterprise-grade ALM platform," which provides consistency of lifecycle and coding practices, governance, and security." Integration with Git, Shubert explained, provides users with a "complete freedom of development approach," while providing "enterprise-grade Git governance and consistency of lifecycle practices for coding practices, release standards and IP reuse."

CollabNet claims to be the first major ALM vendor to provide a comprehensive platform to govern and secure development with the Git DVCS tool.

CollabNet Connect is available now through the release of TeamForge 6.1.1. More information and download instructions can be found here.