IBM Rational ClearCase Advanced

    

Summary:
This course is intended for those who will be using, supporting, maintaining or configuring ClearCase to support the various configuration management tasks for a team or project. These tasks include, but are not limited to:

VOB planning involving asset identification and structure (assets can include source code, test cases, design documents, specifications, project management documents etc).
Defining tags and developing ClearCase policies to support release and build management.
Planning branch labels, branch-merge strategies for various work flow models.
Designing and supporting views for various areas of responsibility: for example new development, support programming, QA functions, release management.
Developing and supporting policies and procedures for use of VOB elements and views.
Scripting to automate ClearCase tasks and integrate with project tools.
View management - maintaining config specs, snapshot view protocols and storage, etc.
Providing administrative support: backups, security, auditing and management analysis.
Establishing metrics and evaluating ClearCase use effectiveness.

These various concepts are introduced and demonstrated during lecture and class discussion, then are reinforced though hands-on project exercises. The exercises in this course consist of students playing the role of a ClearCase project administrator for two different projects: (1) A mainstream development project that has to support maintenance releases in between major releases and; (2) an Agile project with multiple simultaneous feature development branches.

The specific ClearCase topics that are covered include but are not limited to:

VOB internals. How VOBs are structured, organized and maintained.
VOB storage allocation, public and private VOBs.
VOB planning and using ClearCase utilities like clearfsimport to prepare VOBs for use.
View planning; snapshot or dynamic.
Writing, testing and editing config specs
Defining and using tags and ClearCase tag utilities.
Defining branches, automating branching, retiring branches.
Writing and testing merge scripts.
Working with meta-data for management purposes and auditing.
Integrating ClearCase with existing tools and scripts.
Using ClearCase management utilities.
Identifying and solving typical ClearCase problems.

At the end of the course, students should be able to manage a ClearCase project from beginning to finish including troubleshoot typical sorts of ClearCase problems and issues that often arise.

Duration:
1 Day/Lecture & Lab

Audience:
This course is intended primarily for those who will be planning the use of ClearCase, configuring or managing the product as part of the CM function for a project or team.

Topics:

• Configuration Management Concepts
• ClearCase Review
• Setting Up the Project VOBs
• Planning Views
• Tags and Release Management
• Branching
• Extended Path Names and Version Trees
• Merging
• Meta-data and Metrics
• Retirement and Archiving
• Final Wrap up

Prerequisites:
Students must have taken IBM Rational ClearCase Introduction as a prerequisite since knowledge of that material is assumed and will not be covered in this course.

Last Update: May 23, 2013