Friday, July 29, 2005

Learning to use RCS on Windows

Keywords: UNIX, RCS on Windows, Revision Control System, Tutorial

Yesterday, I was faced with the challenge of integrating RCS with Mercury Change Management. RCS is one of many available version control software on UNIX. As such Mercury ITG has out-of-the-box support for RCS. However, it is critical to understand the functioning of the actual software in order to integrate it with ITG. In order to understand the functioning of RCS, I searched the Net looking for tutorials. I found many, but none of them was specifically written keeping in mind Windows users. So, I decided to post what I did.

I had to post the article on my other site, as I originally created the document in MS Word and you know how difficult it is to get MS Word generated HTML to get accepted anywhere. Following the exact steps as given in the article, you can develop a good understanding of the product. The target of this article is to make you learn the basics of RCS on your own.

The article is available at: http://www13.brinkster.com/ranjeetrain/tutorials/

Mercury ITG architecture

Keywords: Mercury IT Governance Architecture, ITG, Kintana

Lately I have been working with Mercury IT Governance Center (formerly Kintana). This is not the kind of tools I have been working in past. Its a new experience. And I wanted to share with you tidbits about it. Mercury IT Governance Center, ITG Center hereafter, is an integrated suite of software tools for managing IT demands, prioritizing them and control project deliveries transparently. This is one of the unusual type of tools I have worked with so far, and has a bit of ERP feel. ITG Center comes preloaded with templates based on best practices, which can either be used as-it-is or can be customized to suit the need of a specific organization. Interesting thing about ITG center is that, many of its templates can be used with minimal customization.

Linked below is the top-level design of the tool, as published on the Mercury site.

Click to enlarge

ITG center is based on a modular design. Modules have been desgined to serve different purposes. Some of the ITG center modules are: IT Governance Dashboard, Demand Management, Project Management, Financial Management, Change Management etc. Licences can be purchased for individual modules depending on the requirement. A graphics containng the technical design of ITG Center is available at mercury site.

Click to enlarge

ITG center is based on a 3-tier architecture. The client/presentation tier has two kind of front-ends. One is a standard thin-client (a webbrowser) interface meant for end-users and the other is a Java applet called Workbench meant for developers (called configurators). Middle tier is an Application Server that combines a web server and the core ITG Center engine. Data storage is handled with an Oracle database server. This 3-tier architecture provides for unlimited flexibility in installation and configuration for scalability. ITG center has no internal databases and depends entirely on a Oracle database server. That means increased licensing cost but at the same time that also means increased dependability and availability. It can work with an external web server allowing for increased dependability and availability while at the same time opening possibilities of integration with other existing applications.

It is an interesting tool. I am likely to work with it for some time. You may expect to hear more on this from me. So, stay tuned folks!