Deliver

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Deliver
And our case study at Exact Software By Drs.
Remy Slinger Jansen
Project Members
Prof. dr. Sjaak BrinkkemperProf. dr. Paul
KlintDr. Gerco BallintijnDrs. Tijs van der Storm
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Introduction

• Deliver
• Intelligent Software Knowledge Management en
  Delivery
• Case study at Exact Software

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Many, Many, Many

• The release and deployment of software is a
  complex task
• Handle many components
• Serve many customers
• Provide many localisations
• Support many customizations
• ...
• and deal with Software Evolution
• Result It takes too much effort!

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Deliver Aims

• To ease software release and deployment effort
  by managing software knowledge explicitly (ISKB).
• To optimize software upgrading
• To simplify incremental upgrades
• To enforce consistency guarantees
• To enable the evaluation of what if scenarios
• To improve risk assessment
• To improve cost estimation

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Research Areas

• The problems fall in three research areas
• Configuration Management
• Software Product Lines
• Software Deployment

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Configuration Management

• Versioning of deliverables (e.g., components)
• Dependencies between versions
• Support for building, testing, and packaging
• Not about
• Source code version management

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Software Product Lines

• Families of software products
• Variability vs commonality
• Software architecture
• Packaging / Composition tools

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Software Deployment

• Webdelivery of upgrades
• Incremental updates
• On-the-fly upgrades
• Consistent evolution of installed software

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Intelligent Software Knowledge Base

• What does the knowledge base look like?
• Vendor-side database
• Customer-side database
• What does it store?
• Facts about the available and installed software
  products
• Facts about the customer environment
• Dependencies between components
• What tools does it provide?
• Completenes and consistency checkers
• Product derivation and overview
• Note Extension of CMS

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Industrial Partners

• GX
• Chipsoft
• Planon
• Exact Software

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Exact Software

• 160.000 customers
• 2025 employees
• Small to medium enterpises
• Internationally very active
• Development in Asia (KL)
• Successful in the Netherlands

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Exact Support
SupportDept1
SupportDept2
Development
Resellers
Developers
Service Center
Service Center
Repositories
Normal
Normal
Release D
Exact internal
Customers
Release C
Release C
New
New
Custom Solutions
Release B
Release B
CS Development
Current
Release A
Release A
Release 0
CD release Repository
Legend
Software
Web release Repository
Feedback
Customers
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e-Synergy

• Combines
• CRM
• PDM
• SCM
• Used internally as well as sold to customers
• Also includes
• Document management, financials, workflow, Human
  resource management, project management

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Customer Portal
HRM
Workflow
CRM
DB
Documents
Employee Portal
Reseller Portal
Project
Financials
Logistics
Supplier Portal
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ES Development

• No version management (only ONE version)
• Spearhead teams
• Only software maintenance
• Regular releases once every three months
• For all products One-X
• Promotion Repositories

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Customers

• Can download new versions
• Updates overwrite previous files
• Database scripts can update datamodel
• Licensing
• License files activate/deactivate components at
  run-time
• (Renewed) License files can be downloaded from
  the e-Synergy customer portal

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SCM

• Version Control
• Configuration Support
• Build support

Development
Repository D
Release C
Repository C
Quality Assurance
Release B
Repository B
Internal customers
Release A
Repository A
Pilot customers
Repository 0
Customers
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PDM

• Manage deliverables, thereby
• Ease delivery
• Decrease time-to-market
• Introduce different views on products
• Attach workflow

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Sales Item Product X
One-of
Company License
University License
More-of
Component 1
Component 2
Component 3
Mandatory
Manual
Box
Sales View
Target items
Target 1
Source File 1
Target 2
Source File 2
Developer View
Source File 3
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CRM

• Enable Custom Solutions
• Unify Licensing and CRM
• Ease delivery

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Results of e-Synergy

• Quicker delivery of software
• Incremental updates
• Licensing
• Quicker release of software
• Manage deliverables and product quality
• Simplified development (maintenance)
• More customers
• Different configurations
• Customisable product
• Cheaper support

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ISKB Exact Software

• No different versions
• No compatibility information
• No building of software
• No partial delivery (?)
• Only manual pull

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Weaknesses of e-Synergy

• Not an ISKB
• No formal relationships between deliverables
• No branching

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Exact Software Strengths

• Development
• Integration of support systems (e-Synergy)
• Simplification of development
• General
• KISS
• One-X
• Eat your own dogfood

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Planon Preview

• Planon has 900 (large) customers, 160 employees
• Exists since 1996 (unline Exact, since 1984)
• Facility management software
• Recently switched from Delphi to J2EE
• Currently supporting two versions, one database
• More Exciting for Deliver (more problems)

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Planon Exact

• No PDM
• Advanced SCM in CVS and VSS
• Good toolbuilders
• No (published) ISKB
• No workflow system
• No webdelivery
• No partial delivery

• e-Synergy
• No SCM besides 1 version
• e-Synergy
• e-Synergy
• e-Synergy
• e-Synergy
• No partial delivery

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Future Work

• Case study at Planon and Chipsoft
• Product Update techniques
• Software product lines

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Questions? Thank you! jansen_at_cwi.nl