Integration, Migration and Cross-Vendor Solutions

Two of the leading requirements management tools in today's market are Telelogic DOORS and IBM Rational RequisitePro. DOORS is widely used by government, defense, automotive, telecommunications and medical organizations. Often touted as a bulletproof database-centric tool, it is often the requirements management tool preferred by systems engineering teams within organizations. RequisitePro is widely used by many IBM/Rational customers, and it's document-centric approach to requirements often appeals to software engineering teams within organizations.

Rare is the organization that has completely standardized on one tool or the other. In many situations, different tools have been standardized on by groups or locations within large organizations. It is often the case that groups' or locations' requirements are dependent on one another, or some mechanism is needed to deliver requirements from one group to others and keep recipients updated if and when the initial requirements change.

Ring-Zero Software currently sells two different solutions that address these problems. The first solution is RD-Move: it provides as a way for RequisitePro users to migrate or periodically deliver their requirements to DOORS users. It uses RequisitePro's published API to extract RequisitePro requirements as XML (Extensible Markup Language), then uses DOORS' extensibility language (DXL) to migrate the requirements to DOORS or update requirements which have been previously migrated. By using standard means of accessing each side, the program is largely insulated from changes that each vendor might make to its software.

Because Ring-Zero uses XML as an interim format, the requirements extracted from RequisitePro can be compressed, encrypted, and thus safely transferred between even the most security-conscious organizations who have the need to interchange requirements. This means that if Organization X uses RequisitePro and Organization Y uses DOORS, X can provide its requirements to Y and keep Y updated of changes. X does not need to buy a single DOORS license, and Y does not need to buy a single RequisitePro license. RD-Move moves data types, traceability linkages between requirements, traces between requirements that reside within separate RequisitePro projects, handles requirement deletions, modifications and changes to the overall requirements hierarchy such as moved or reparented requirements.

Ring-Zero's second solution that addresses these problems is RD-Link: a Requisite-Pro centric integration between RequisitePro and DOORS. The integration leverages many of the same technologies for interchange, e.g. XML over HTTP or HTTPS along with separate encryption and compression between DOORS and RequisitePro. It provides a way for RequisitePro users to create links between their own requirements and ones stored in DOORS. The traces are easily reviewed in RequisitePro's traceability matrix. If DOORS requirements change, linked requirements are flagged as "suspect".

For more information on these two solutions, please contact or visit Ring-Zero Software.