This year’s Gartner Application Architecture, Development & Integration Summit was held in Vegas. What better place to learn both blackjack and IT strategy especially when two of the Tasktopians were on the MIT Blackjack team. We had a cool handout highlighting the pain points that Tasktop Dev and Tasktop Sync help solve, as well as a basic strategy table for Blackjack. Tasktop was a silver sponsor of the event and we had a blast networking and strategizing with fellow innovators and industry leaders.
We had a lot of fun hanging out with our new partners from Borland who attended the show as well. We’re proud to announce that customers of Borland StarTeam can now gain interoperability and integration via Tasktop Dev and Tasktop Sync. The desserts at Serendipity were bigger than Borland product manager Nicole’s head.
Congrats to Naji from California who won a new iPad2 in the Tasktop giveaway draw.
We’re pleased to announce the release of a full-featured Mylyn Connector for Borland StarTeam, a robust and scalable platform for software project and source code management. This new connector is available for both Tasktop Dev (Eclipse and Visual Studio) and Tasktop Sync and is the result of a close R&D collaboration with Borland, a Micro Focus company.
Today Borland is also announcing that StarTeam 12.0 will be released on December 16th 2011. This latest version of the platform includes a number of new capabilities that complement the new interoperability provided by the connector.
Connect StarTeam with Eclipse and Visual Studio Development
The StarTeam Mylyn connector provides integrated access to StarTeam artifacts
such as tasks, defects and requirements, all from the Eclipse or Visual Studio IDE. In Eclipse, Mylyn’s task focused programming productivity capabilities are fully supported, enabling developers to recover from interruptions and view only the relevant code for a task with a single click.
StarTeam tasks and task editor
Time tracking is a painful reality for many developers but with the StarTeam connector time spent on each task is automatically tracked, making it easy for developers to adjust recorded time as needed and submit it to the StarTeam server. The StarTeam task editor also displays a chart showing when and how much time was spent on the task in the recent past.
Bi-directional task to code traceability
The new connector also seamlessly extends Borland’s existing StarTeam Eclipse Client (STEC) to group file changes on a per-task basis and automate the tedious task of writing commit comments when submitting code. The automatically generated commit comments include a link to the relevant task, which establishes traceability between the code and the relevant defect or other project management task.
Eclipse Synchronize view with StarTeam code changes grouped by task
This connector can also automatically update StarTeam tasks with the reverse link back to the relevant code for full bi-directional traceability. To support teams in mixed ALM environments, this automated traceability can also be provided between StarTeam tasks and SCM artifacts in Microsoft TFS or Subversion.
Attach commit traces to the task
View traces in the task editor
Connect StarTeam to dozens of ALM systems with Tasktop Sync
The new StarTeam Connector is also available with Tasktop Sync, enabling instant bi-directional synchronization between StarTeam and dozens of third party ALM systems. One of the new features in StarTeam 12.0 is the introduction of Custom Components, which allows arbitrary artifacts to be defined and managed in StarTeam. Tasktop Sync takes advantage of this capability to synchronize arbitrary artifacts from third party systems with StarTeam. This ensures that each stakeholder has access to the data they need within their primary tool while making StarTeam a hub for comprehensive visibility and reporting across a diverse set of tools.
Through the Eclipse, Visual Studio, and Sync integration capabilities provided by this connector, organizations with new or existing StarTeam deployments can now enjoy a new dose of integration bliss.
The Borland StarTeam Connector is available now via Tasktop Dev Enterprise and Tasktop Sync.
Our aim is to transform software delivery by unifying ALM and empowering developers as the core stakeholders of application delivery. The Tasktop Sync 1.0 release provided the first ALM integration middleware for the wide range of enterprise, Agile and open source ALM tools. They key change that Tasktop Sync enabled was to connect developers with the other stakeholders in the process, such as testers and Agile project managers. By building on the Eclipse Mylyn open source frameworks and ecosystem of Mylyn connectors, we were able to focus our efforts on creating a new kind of synchronization framework capable of providing immediate updates across vendors’ and open source ALM tools. It’s this real-time aspect that created the game changer in terms of collaboration, since for the first time, developers and testers could use their tool of choice while their task updates and comments propagated instantly across organizational boundaries. Not only does this reduce tedious email inbox overload and put ALM data where it belongs, it is a critical step in addressing the ALM disconnect that for many organizations has become is the main bottleneck on large-scale software delivery.
Since the 1.0 release of Sync, we have been swamped with requests to help organizations weave together disconnected best-of-breed ALM tools. A problem we quickly discovered with deploying Sync 1.0 is that most organizations do not have their ALM architecture or data models documented, as these have been scattered across disparate tools and departments. In order to help organizations do for themselves what our professional services division provides, we have added a repository introspection tool capable of connecting to each of your ALM tools and retrieving each repository’s data model. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to connect the ALM stack, and given the state of ALM today, that has meant creating a whole new set of ALM data model management tools in order to achieve this.
The biggest new feature of Sync 2.0 is new OSLC-based support for linking application lifecycle artifacts. This feature has been three years in the making, kicked off when we started collaborating with IBM on the OSLC-CM protocol, targeted at linking together our common representation of tasks across various ALM systems. The immediate benefit of this new linking support is for organizations with IBM CLM tools in their stack, such as Rational Team Concert (RTC) and Rational Requirements Composer (RRC). In addition to providing the full synchronization that enables collaboration, Tasktop Sync can now link and retrieve ALM data on-demand via this new OSLC-based REST layer. In the video above, you can see a demo of how we are able to leverage the CLM tools seamless embedding of OSLC data in order to provide rich linking as an alternative to full synchronization, particularly suitable to connecting Requirements Management tools to dev and QA tools.
Tasktop Sync is continuing to evolve rapidly in order to become the glue needed to modernize and connect the ALM stack. We have been working very closely with our partners, who are driving the innovation of Agile and ALM features, and ensuring that the new capabilities that they are add are seamlessly exposed in the Sync and Dev products. In order to provide the developer-centric view on our partners’ rapidly evolving ALM tools, we are also releasing a new version of Tasktop Dev, as well as a key new integration, both to be announced later this week. Stay posted for those announcements, and check out all of the new features and overview videos on the Sync 2.0 web page.
This Friday is the submission deadline for the Agile ALM Connect sub-conference of EclipseCon. This new conference fills a gap that many of us have noticed in the conversation around Agile, ALM and developers. The “developers” part of the equation is often either missing or an afterthought. Even though developers were the root cause of the Agile movement, the discourse around Agile tends to focus on project management related methodologies. Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), perhaps by virtue of the word management being part of its acronym, has a legacy of neglecting the core need to make developers empowered and productive. While end-to-end approaches like the Rational Unified Process (RUP) had end-to-end traceability, they treated developers as an implementation detail, and as a result, have been relegated to history books. In this new age of ALM, we need to make sure that we do not make the same mistakes again. The Agile ALM Connect conference is the place to have the conversations needed to bring together the latest developments in open source, Agile, large-scale ALM, and to get developers back to the center of the discussion.
Ten years ago, I got involved with Eclipse as one of the first non-IBM committers, which has given me perspective on the way Eclipse first disrupted and then evolved along with the application development landscape. By way of efforts like EGit, Hudson/Jenkins, Tycho, and the umbrella of Mylyn projects, Eclipse has since become the leading driver of innovation in moving the developer to the center of the ALM picture. Other IDEs and development platforms are now starting to emulate the dev-centric ALM transformation that Eclipse started five years ago. From this transformation, a new set of open source frameworks were created and now broadly adopted. As a result, the ALM projects on Eclipse have come to lead the connection between the developer and the Agile plan, deployment destination, operations team, requirements, and quality management.
At the Agile ALM Connect conference we will be charting the course for the role of the developer in ALM, while connecting the organization to the new breed of open source, Agile and devops technologies. Unlike conferences focused on methodologies, we are interested in the full spectrum of approaches, ranging from tools and automation to people and practices. If you have ideas to share on how the landscape of Agile, ALM, and application development should evolve over the next decade, consider joining the conversation.
A year ago at SpringOne 2010, Spring founder Rod Johnson announced a new technology called “Code2Cloud” during his opening keynote (skip to minute 56). Since that announcement, development of Code2Cloud has continued at a rapid pace, with a growing community of private beta users. The ideas and technology behind Code2Cloud have become an underpinning of how we see the convergence of ALM and cloud and a key building block of our vision for a more integrated and developer-centric ALM stack, outlined at a high-level in the following talk.
Many of you have been asking when Code2Cloud (or as some knew it, Cloud Foundry Code) is going to be made publicly available. Today we are announcing a key milestone on this longer-than-expected journey. Tasktop has now been tasked by VMware to bring Code2Cloud to the open source community. Tasktop’s services division has been the delivery partner for the project and Tasktop will continue to maintain and evolve Code2Cloud for the early adopters of the closed beta. Although we haven’t yet determined the specifics of how, when, and where Code2Cloud will be made available in open source, or for that matter the name of the project when it is open sourced, we are committed to making the project available in Q1 of 2012. Code2Cloud will be available via a community and commercial-friendly open source license (either Eclipse Public License v1.0 or Apache License v2.0).
We are announcing this change in the project structure because as with Eclipse Mylyn, we see a successful Code2Cloud as being built on an open and inviting charter for both individual and commercial contributors wanting to leverage the Code2Cloud frameworks and tools. We will work with our existing partners and community over the coming month to define a structure and charter for the project. We encourage any interested parties to contact us at partners@tasktop.com. We believe there are tremendous opportunities for ALM vendors to participate in and leverage Code2Cloud as an on-ramp to their initiatives and to get a step ahead in the move of the deployment destination to the cloud.
Over the past year, Code2Cloud has grown to become a developer-centric integration platform architected to connect developers to PaaS deployment destinations by way of the ALM stack. It supports CloudFoundry and builds on existing tools such as Hudson/Jenkins, Git and GitHub. It also provides a Bugzilla-compatible but cloud-centric issue tracker intended to connect the running application, CI and SCM tools to the developer’s desktop, and unifies services such as authentication via OAuth. A key opportunity that we see now is in making Code2Cloud even more agnostic of the ALM stack and in delivering its integration and Cloud deployment support to the wide variety of open source and commercial ALM tools available today.
If you have ideas or questions on bringing Code2Cloud to open source please post here. If you want to get involved in discussing the structure of the open source project please email partners@tasktop.com. For more see: http://tasktop.com/c2c
Last week Mik Kersten, creator of Mylyn and Tasktop CEO, presented a webinar introducing the newly released Tasktop Sync. Attendees watched Tasktop Sync in action and learned about the many challenges that it solves in today’s heterogeneous organizations. If you missed the webinar, click the image below to watch a recording.
During the webinar, Kersten showed how Tasktop Sync helps to bridge the gap between software planning and development by connecting development, QA, and agile project management, and allowing each stakeholder to access the data that they need within their tool of choice. Kersten also showed how Tasktop Sync accomplishes real-time ALM server synchronization, with support for over two dozen ALM tools.
Sync provides the first of its kind enterprise-scale ALM synchronization solution that is built on the industry-standard Eclipse Mylyn ALM integration framework. Learn more about Tasktop Sync.
Meet Tasktop at JavaOne at Booth #5004. Tasktop team members will be happy to show you the latest from Tasktop including Tasktop Sync, Tasktop Dev and Eclipse Mylyn.
Also, if you have some time, Tasktop and GitHub are co-hosting a Drinkup on Tuesday night starting at 8pm at Jasper’s Corner Tap. Jasper’s Corner Tap is located at 401 Taylor St. We hope to see you there.
Monday’s Panel: The Future of Java Build and Continuous Integration
Ted Farrell, Chief Architect, Tools & Middleware
Mik Kersten, CEO, Tasktop, @mik_kersten
Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director, Eclipse Foundation, @mmilinkov
Mike Maciag, CEO Electric Cloud
Max Spring, Tech Lead, Cisco Systems
from Mik's JavaOne talk
We saw a great turn out at the panel, with attendees driving a discussion of how Hudson and Continuous Integration in general is becoming a central part of the modern ALM stack. Tomorrow (Tuesday October 4th), Mik will elaborate on the story in his talk titled “ALM Automation with Mylyn and Hudson”.
Tuesday’s Talk: ALM Automation with Mylyn and Hudson
With the shift to PaaS and a new breed of open source ALM tools, the deployment loop of enterprise apps is going through its biggest transition since the creation of Java. Kersten will explore connecting the enterprise Java stack to cloud deployment via task-focused continuous integration based on Hudson. Distributed version control systems, code review and Agile planning, based on the Eclipse Mylyn interoperability platform, can be used to create a new level of connectivity and automation between the team and the running application. This talk outlines a roadmap for transforming productivity by connecting developers’ desktops to the release, and automating all the steps in between, from provisioning the IDE to monitoring the running application.
The new Tasktop Sync, released last month, provides real-time ALM server synchronization, with support for over two dozen ALM tools. Sync provides the first of its kind enterprise-scale ALM synchronization solution that is built on the industry-standard Eclipse Mylyn ALM integration framework. Created using Tasktop’s Task Federation™ technology, Tasktop Sync ensures that each stakeholder has access to the data that they need within their tool of choice.
To help you fully take advantage of the new Tasktop Sync, Mik Kersten, creator of Mylyn and Tasktop CEO, will present a Tasktop Sync webinar to demonstrate its capabilities. During the webinar, Mik will show how Tasktop Sync connects development, QA, and agile project management stakeholders and discuss the challenges that Tasktop Sync solves.
Hot on the heels of the Tasktop Sync 1.0 release, we are pleased to announce the availability of Tasktop Dev 2.1. As an indication of our focus on the Agile and ALM needs of the developer, the product line previously known as Tasktop is now called Tasktop Dev. This release builds on the Eclipse Indigo release of Mylyn 3.6, includes the latest connectors, productivity features and new Agile planning support, and is a significant step forward in terms of connecting developers to both the Agile and the traditional planning process, while ensuring that we get to use the best-of-breed ALM and open source technologies that make us productive.
James Governor (RedMonk founder and Principal Analyst) and I discussed the release and walked through some of the key features:
HP ALM & Quality Center 11 on Mac, Linux and 64-bit Windows
HP ALM Requirements, Defects and Tests can now be retrieved on Mac, Linux and 64-bit Windows machines using the REST connection provided by ALM 11 instead of the native connection. This feature is only supported when connecting to ALM 11 Patch 2 or higher.
HP ALM & Quality Center Tests
You can now bring HP ALM Tests into your Task List along side your HP ALM Defects and Requirements.
Tasktop for VS: Ability to View Task Associations
The Visual Studio task editor now displays task associations, making it easy to see the parent and child relationships and external dependencies inside Visual Studio. Double-clicking an associated task opens it in the task editor, allowing you to quickly access its content.
Planner Story Board and Kanban
The planning tools now support Kanban for compatible ALM tools, and includes a story board and WIP limits. The release planner now supports grouping stories and tasks by activity or assignee, allowing you to organize your planning around these high level concepts.
Focus plan on My Tasks
The task board and story board now include a “Focus on My Tasks” button which shows you only the tasks or stories that are assigned to you.
In our mission to improve the productivity of software development, our focus to date has been the developer. With Mylyn for the masses and Tasktop for the Enterprise, we have provided developers the tools that they need to focus on coding amidst constant interruptions and organizational shifts between disparate application lifecycle management (ALM) tools and ever-evolving flavors of Agile. Mylyn and Tasktop provide developers a single pane of glass through which to view all parts of the application lifecycle relevant to their work. But other key stakeholders, who do not live in the IDE, are missing this visibility. Over the course of the past decade, as the heterogeneity of ALM has increased the vantage of these stakeholders decreased. Today we are announcing a new product that will bring all members of the development process into the modern software delivery loop.
Tasktop Sync moves our existing Task Federation(tm) technology from a developer’s desktop client to the server. Developers’ need for Task Federation arose from the fact that in larger organizations, development tasks span multiple systems, from requirements definitions to defects, from issues to change sets and from tests to builds. But tasks not only span systems, they also span stakeholders. If a tester needs to email a developer to get clarification on a fix, or to email a business analyst for details on a requirement related to testing, the ALM stack is broken. With application complexity continually rising, it is no longer feasible to effectively collaborate and report over disconnected chains of email. Just as Tasktop, Mylyn and the task-focused interface have been instrumental at starting to bring about the end of email between developers, today we are embarking on connecting the other members of the software lifecycle. The difference is that unlike developers, most other stakeholders do not live in an IDE-type rich client capable of bringing the many disparate forms of software project information together. Their window on the software delivery process is the web browser. To support them, we needed to integrate directly with the data models of the tools that they use.
Tasktop Sync is the first real-time synchronizer for ALM. While synchronization is largely solved for email and contacts, with protocols and synchronizers working seamlessly across Microsoft Exchange, IMAP, Google Apps and iOS, the lack of a scalable and generic solution has been an endemic problem in large-scale ALM. With Tasktop Sync, the ALM architect simply sets up a mapping between the various ALM systems of record for requirements, Agile, development and testing. For example, the mapping may specify that defects should be one-to-one mapped between the Agile tracker and the defect tracker. Once Tasktop sync has built up its cache, every change in the test system is propagated instantly to the agile tool, and back again, ensuring that all stakeholders can work in their system of choice. We have built on the Mylyn frameworks, Tasktop Certified ecosystem of connectors, and our deep partnerships with the leading Agile and ALM vendors to create this entirely new level of ALM interoperability.
If you are involved in an Agile rollout or ALM modernization effort that is struggling with disconnected tools and increasing presence of open source in the stack, Tasktop Sync will provide you with the integration that you need for all stakeholders to collaborate with context in their tool of choice.
