BUSINESS ISSUE...

Software development requires coordination between development teams that sometimes work in parallel using common components. This is the cause of dysfunctions, the most frequent ones being:

• Regressions, due to incidents that are supposed to be fixed and that reappeared in a new version,
• Developers who modified the same source file without coordination and dialog,
• Modifications causing errors on impacted components that are not taken into account,
• Loss of source files,
• Performed modifications not embedded in the production of the new version.

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THE ARCAD SOLUTION...

The ARCAD-Skipper software suite ensures the “high availability” of the company application set, in spite of all the evolutions that need to be done as it is used.
It allows you to know at any time the status of each of the components, along with its role in the implementation cycle phases, thus helping you to coordinate its development phases.
It also allows you to built “ready for delivery” applications that you can deliver on heterogeneous servers simultaneously.

However, the peculiar characteristic of ARCAD-Skipper resides in the version consistency control mechanism based on the wealth of ARCAD Repository.
Before a new application version can be transferred in a test environment, the product performs a series of tests to avoid basic errors such as “level errors” or “error in parameters calls”; all these elements ensure the quality of application evolutions from the development phase.

Here are some of the controls that you can activate:

• Control of the dependencies between files and programs: Program using a modified file should be in the same version, even if only recompiled.
• Control of multi-platform dependencies: it verifies that all Unix/Linux or Windows components that access “System i” tables are in the same version.
• Control of the parameter passing between programs and procedures (ILE): it verifies that the number, type and length are consistent.
• Control of ILE signatures.
• Control of the sources/objects levels: it verifies that the sources are at the same level than the corresponding objects.
• Usage control: It verifies that all the components in a version are used at least once.

If different modifications have been simultaneously done on a given component, the consistency control verifies that the developer has validated the merge that should follow.
Furthermore, if you have put a project management in place for the development of the version, you can control that the completion estimated dates have been entered.

ADVANTAGES

ARCAD-Skipper allows you to reduce the application test workload significantly, by eliminating potential regressions at technical level from the development phase. Version testers can thus concentrate on the functional tests only and increase their efficiency.
This results in better application reliability, even in the case of major application evolutions and if these evolutions involve different development teams in heterogeneous environments.