What is the difference between Purify and traditional debuggers?

The IBM Rational Purify grants power to the developers to deliver a product whose quality, reliability and performance matches with the expectations of the users. The purify plus combines the following and provides 3 benefits:

1. Bug finding capabilities from the rational purify,
2. Performance tuning effects from the rational quantify and
3. Testing rigors from the rational pure coverage.

Together these three things make purify a different debugger that what the traditional debuggers we have. The above mentioned 3 benefits are measured in the terms of the faster development times, less number of errors and better code. 

About IBM Rational Purify

- The purify is actually a memory debugger by nature and is particularly used for the detection of the memory access errors especially in the programs that have been written in languages such as C and C++. 

- This software was originally developed by Reed Hastings, a member developer of the pure software organization. 

- However, Rational Purify exhibits the similar functionality as that of the Valgrind, bounds checker, Insure++.

- A process called dynamic verification using which the errors that occur during the execution can be discovered by a program is supported by the rational purify just like a debugger.

- However, there is another process called the static verification which is just the opposite of the dynamic verification and is also supported by the rational purify. 

- This process works by digging out inconsistencies present in the program logic. 

- Whenever there is a linking between a program and purify, the correct version of the verified code is automatically inserted in to the executable part of the code by either adding it to the object code or by parsing. 

- So, if whenever an error occurs, the location of the error, its memory address and other relevant info will be printed out by the tool. 

- Similarly, whenever a memory leak is detected by the purify it generates a leak report towards the exit of the program.

Difference between Rational Purify and Traditional Debuggers

- The major difference between the rational purify and the traditional debuggers is the ability of detecting the non – fatal errors. 

- The traditional debuggers only show up the sources which can cause the fatal errors such as a de-referencing to a null pointer can cause a program to crash and they are not effective in finding out the non – fatal memory errors. 

However, there are certain things for which the traditional debuggers are more effective than the rational purify for e.g., 

- The debuggers can be used to step line by line through the code and to examine the memory of the program at any particular instance of time. 

- It would not be wrong if we say that these two tools are complementary to each other and can work great for a skilled developer. 

- The purify comes with other functionality which can be used for more general purposes rather than the debuggers which can be used only for the code.

- One thing to be noted about the purify is that it is more effective for the programming languages in which the memory management is left to the program developer. 

- This is the reason why the occurrence of the memory leaks is reduced in the programs written in languages such as java, visual basic and lisp etc. 

- It is not like these languages will never have memory leaks, they do have which occur because of the objects being referred to unnecessarily (this prevents the re – allocation of the memory.). 

- IBM has provided solution for these kind of errors also in the form of its another product called the rational application developer.

- Errors such as the following are covered by the purify:

1. Array bounds
2. Access to un-allocated memory
3. Freeing the memory that is un-allocated
4. Memory leaks and so on. 

Explain IBM Rational Automation Framework?

What is Rational Automation Framework?

- Rational automation frame work is a tool developed by IBM using which control can be gained over the middle-ware environments.
- It is also used for the automation of the deployment tasks and complex administration.
- This automation frame work is highly customizable.
- Using it, one can obtain automated build – outs.
- Using it, one can even deploy a number of applications and manage the configuration of the application.
- It has been recorded that with the use of rational automation frame work, you can cut down the operational costs by huge margins and production can be improved.
- This automation frame work can be extended.
- The rational automation frame work provides a rich automation support for the following:
1. Web sphere middleware
2. JBoss application server
3. Web logic application server

Features of Rational Automation Framework

The following are features of the rational automation frame work:
1. Increases the productivity while reducing the staffing needs of the routine tasks. The routine tasks included are:
a) Automation of the manual operations
b) Error prone tasks
c) Freeing up the admin resources which are scarce.
All these tasks help in focusing up on strategic projects.

2. It helps in the improvement of application’s quality, consistency and speed. All these three factors are used to deliver applications that are business critical with the help of process which possesses the following three qualities namely accuracy, consistency and repetition.

3. It helps in the reduction of the cost of compliance, IT governance and disaster recovery. It improves the following 3 things without causing any overheads:
a) Governance
b) Disaster recovery planning and
c) Automated documentation for compliance

4. It automates the below mentioned things:
a) Environment build – outs
b) Configuration management
c) Application deployment tasks
For the following portfolio:
a) Web sphere foundation
b) Web sphere BPM suite
c) Web sphere portal

5. It is a great means for extending the automation benefits as well as qualities of services to the following:
a) Web sphere connectivity (web sphere message broker and MQ)
b) Red hat JBoss application server
c) Oracle web logic application server
This it does via the MidVision extensions to IBM RAF.

6. Helps in facilitating team – based administration with the help of a robust automation engine with improved reliability and performance.

7. Makes sure that the virtual patterns are efficiently managed with rapid provisioning with web sphere cloud burst appliance.

8. Enhances the control and workflow management in data center environments by integrating it with LDAP directories, source control tools, and rational asset manager.

This product comes with extensions that assist in the management of the additional middle-ware environments such as WMB, MQ, Jboss and web logic etc. These environments are managed with the same QoS and automation platform. The web sphere cloud burst appliance of the rational application developer helps in speeding up the virtualization environments with hyper-visor images.

We shall now state some of the features and their benefits:
1. It is a data driven and centralized automation frame work: it helps in ensuring that the appropriate data is being associated with the appropriate application and in the right environment every time.
2. It has got a rich user interface. The middle-ware configuration data can be designed, edited and managed using this frame work. New configurations can be added to a cell.
3. It is also an environment generation wizard that can also be used for specifying the criteria for a particular environment.
4. This product comes with self – documentation feature which ensures that the appropriate deployment information is captured and artifacts are properly managed.
5. Agent less technology
6. Customizable
7. Deployment artifacts are separated from the deployment process.

Give an overview of IBM Rational Application Developer?

The Rational Application Developer was developed by IBM to provide a complete solution for the development of the applications which are otherwise are difficult to be built. It creates an integrated environment for you to work in. The work bench platform can be further extended to meet your specific requirements. 

The Rational Application Developer by default supports two SCM systems (software configuration management systems) namely:

1. SCM adapter plug–in: This is included for the CVS systems (concurrent version system). This is so because the eclipse only supports the open source SCM system which is none other than the CVS.
2. Rational clear case SCM adapter plug–in: This is automatically installed by the rational application developer. However the clear case client needs to be installed separately.

Before using either of the above mentioned adapters, you should enable the appropriate one. 

About Rational Application Developer

- Rational application developer is a great tool for the development of web application since its work bench offers you a number of tools that you might require for developing your applications. 

- The application may range from web sites to static web pages to complex web applications which make use of JSP files or java servlets.

- A web project consists of all these resources, web resources and deployment descriptors.

- Rational application developer can also be used for the development of portal as well as portlet applications. 

- The tools provided by the rational application developer run well on web sphere portal. 

- Rational application developer has it all that is required for the development of portal – views, wizards and specialized editors. 

- All these ease the creation of the portal sites. 

- Java development tools of the rational application developer assist you in building and running the java programs that have been optimized. 

- Tools consist of a UML diagram editor and a visual editor as well. 

- The client, data tiers and servers can be segregated using the J2EE specifications for the enterprise applications. 

- It has also got some relation data base tools using which the work regarding the data access applications can be defined. 

- You can work with the following:

1. Tables
2. Views
3. Filters
4. SQL
5. DB2
6. UDB routines
7. SQLJ files
8. SQL DDL files
9. DADX files
10. XML files and so on.

- Not only this, a number of enterprise applications can be developed and tested in the specialized environment dedicated to this by the rational application developer. 

- The following tasks can also be carried out:

1. Writing and editing business logic
2. Importing and exporting enterprise applications
3. Maintenance of the source code
4. Generating code using java development tools

- An already existing system can be redesigned to achieve better maintenance of the design. 

- This IBM product also comes with tools to assist you in discovering, transforming, and creating, deploying, building, developing, testing and publishing the web services. 

- Thus, it is a web service development package also. 

- A web service consists of many application functions that are related to each other and can be invoked over the internet. 

- These web services can be mixed and matched by the businesses for carrying out complex transformations involving just required amount of programming. 

- Rational application developer has proved to be quite a great tool in developing the EGL (enterprise generation language) applications. 

- EGL are the languages which help you write code for full functions applications as quickly as possible. 

- It lets you focus up on the business problems rather than its development technology. 

- It can be used for the creation of a text user interface, basic batch, as well as web applications. 

How does an IBM Rational Functional Tester work?

Rational functional tester is an IBM product developed exclusively for carrying out automated functional testing as well as regression testing. Thus, it can also be very well considered to be a regression testing and automated functional testing tool. It provides the testers with the extended abilities for carrying out the following tests:

1.   Automated functional testing

2.   Regression testing

3.   GUI testing and

4.   DDT or data driven testing

- It sounds like a wonderful tool which provides facilities to carry out four types of distinct tests. 

- Also, it would not be wrong if you call it a ‘automated functional regression testing tool’. 

- Using this IBM tool, capturing and creating automated tests becomes so easy since it ensures that the basic purpose of the tests.

- IBM’s rational functional tester becomes a more useful tool if it used by an individual of a software delivery team which continually updates the application or the software system and requires a mean using which it can keep executing a batch of core tests.

- With other tools you have to go through all the actions before you perform them which makes the testing even more difficult. 

- On the other hand if you are IBM rational functional tester, only once you need to capture the tester and then you can have the tool does the play back for you any number of times. 

- In other words, you can say that a whole series of tests can be grouped to form a test suite which can be run whole day and all night long to make sure that the software system or application is free of any regressions. 

- Before you start using the rational functional tester, it is advisable that you first go through the demo of the product and read the data sheet and then go for using it. 

- This tool developed by IBM is fully object oriented and can tester the following applications:

1. Windows applications
2. .NET
3. Java
4. HTML
5. Siebel
6. SAP
7. AJAX
8. Power builder
9. Flex
10. Dojo
11. Visual basic
12. GEF etc.

- In addition to all these things mentioned below can also be tested:

1. Adobe PDF documents
2. Zseries applications
3. Iseries applications
4. Pseries applications

- With rational functional tester, you get a reliability and robustness in the scripts that are recorded using it. 

- These scripts later can be used for play back in order to carry out the validation of the test applications. 

- However, one thing to know about rational functional tester is that it supports only two platforms namely windows and Linux.

- Two integrated development environments are supported by the rational functional tester. 

- Firstly, user actions can be recorded for the creation of the scripts in the simplest form that can be understood easily on the platform of rational software delivery. 

- In order to provide an extra helping hand to the advanced users it comes with the support for two scripting languages as mentioned below:

1. Java language: for functional tester java scripting
2. VB.NET language: for the functional tester VB.NET 2003 as well as 2005.

- The development environment is of the Microsoft visual studio .NET. 

- It comes with an extension for the terminal based applications as mentioned above so as to provide support for the functional testing of the following:

1. zSeries applications such as TN3270E, TN3270 and so on.
2. iSeries applications such as TN5250.
3. pSeries applications such as VT default, VT 420 – 7, VT 100, VT UTF – 8, VT 420 – 8 etc which are all virtual terminals.

- With this extension you can create test scripts for the automation of the test cases of the host applications. 

- It becomes easy for you to test the following:

1. host attributes
2. host field attributes and
3. screen flow

- For testing all these, it makes use of the terminal verification properties and points and synchronization code for the identification of the readiness of the terminal to take input from the user. 

What is IBM Rational Method Composer product?

One the major products of IBM is the Rational Method Composer or RMC. 

About Rational Method Composer

- This product has proved to be quite reliable in increasing the effectiveness as well as the agility of the software system or application.

- It provides platform that is quite flexible for process management. 

- This IBM product is equipped with the most comprehensive tooling of the software industry. 

- It also comes with the richest process library so as to provide assistance to the companies in the implementation of the effective processes so that they can come up with many successful IT and software projects. 

Characteristics of Rational Method Composer

1. The rational method composer have some very new practices that will surely improve the performance of many of the leading process experience as well as expertise in the following areas:

Ø  Agile development

Ø  Governance and compliance

Ø  Requirements management

Ø  Quality management

Ø  Change management

Ø  Release management

2. It helps greatly in the identification of the improvements that are needed by the mapping practices. The improvements identified by the rational method composer can be adopted in increments and improved also as per the business objectives of the project.
3. The rational method composer offers a choice of over 100 process guidance that are both select-able and customizable and are inclusive of the IBM rational unified process. This guidance can help you in solving common management, business and development problems. 
4. The facility of providing the corrective action and measured results is what makes the rational method composer more user friendly. Such measure let you harness the effectiveness of the practice adoption.
5. With Rational Method Composer you get the privileges for managing, authoring, measuring, evolving as well as deploying the effective processes that are tailor made for your software system or application project needs since it is the leading the eclipse – based tool of the software industry.
6. The rational method composer maintains consistency in driving the results across the whole project with the help of the best practices which have been proven and have been integrated with the following:

Ø  Measurements

Ø  Agile

Ø  Reporting

Ø  Project management tools and

Ø  Services

7. A quantum leap forward is represented by the rational method composer and provides process solutions to IBM for the development of the software systems and applications, agile practices and service management.
8. Rational method composer assists in capturing and maintaining the individuals’ own practices and further combines them with the practices and processes of IBM for achieving maximum result. 

One similarity that we can find in each and every project is that there is always a need to minimize the risk, ensuring the predictable results, delivering the high – quality results on time and so on.

Benefits of Rational Method Composer

- The practices provided by the rational method composer can be re-used for composing the process that is right – sized enough for meeting the specific requirements of the software systems and applications.

- The libraries of the rational method composer consist of the most robust practices.

- These practices are guidance for the software development, governance and management and can be very well applied to domains as well as the processes. 

- The following two libraries are shipped along with the rational method composer:

1. The IBM rational unified process 
2. The IBM practice Library