Throughout the delivery of software
and solutions for an enterprise, architects create assets, such as
models and designs. They can use Rational Asset Manager to govern
how architecture design models drive software development.
Architecture and design management may include:
- Managing the architectural views of a business
- Managing the enterprise assets for solutions
You can use Rational® Asset
Manager with various design and modeling tools to govern enterprise
architectures and the solutions that are based on those architectures:
- You can publish models and reports from IBM® Rational System
Architect as assets.
- You can use asset lifecycles to provide governance for architectural
reviews.
- You can map the IT solutions and implementations that compose
an enterprise architecture to Rational System
Architect models and reports for traceability.
- When you modify Rational System
Architect models and reports, new asset versions are published and
governed in Rational Asset
Manager.
- When you modify IT solutions and implementations, new asset versions
are published and can be reported on for impact analysis.
The following image shows how to use IBM Rational Asset Manager to manage
logical and physical relationships between different tools and kinds
of work products.

Architecture management includes several distinct needs over various
development phases, as shown in the following table:
Table 1. Managing
an enterprise architecture| Phase |
Context |
Product |
| Planning |
During planning, architects plan the construction
or evolution of large-scale systems of systems. The focus is on aligning
portfolio investments, business priorities, and requirements. |
Rational System
Architect |
| Design |
In the design phase, architects design the structure
and behavior of software and systems. The focus is on understanding
the structure and behavior for systems and software solutions and
abstractions of planned solutions. |
- IBM Rational Software Architect
- IBM Rational Rhapsody®
|
| Construction |
During construction, development teams implement
the systems and software according to the enterprise and solution
architecture. |
IBM Rational Application Developer |
| Deployment |
During deployment, teams deploy a solution to
a target production environment, such as an IT system, an embedded
device, or a more complex systems-of-systems application. The focus
is on automating solution delivery and operations management. |
- Rational Software
Architect
- Rational Asset Manager
integration with IBM Tivoli® Change and Configuration
Management Database
|
Governance for developing enterprise architecture
and managing assets
You can use Rational Asset Manager as the hub for governing
architecture assets and connecting design and solution assets.
In
the following image, the arrows that point away from the Rational Asset Manager server represent
users who are searching, finding, and using assets. The arrows that
point to the server represent users who are creating or modifying
assets.

The image shows
the following activities:
- An enterprise architect searches in Rational Asset Manager for assets to reuse.
The architect might search for approved business models, components,
or blueprints for designs and definitions to use or improve in a new
system architecture model (for example, a business service that needs
to be automated).
- The enterprise architect creates the new model and publishes it
in Rational Asset Manager
as an asset. System models can be used for any designing or planning,
such as for business processes or organizational changes.
Rational
Asset Manager supports Rational System
Architect diagrams and definition assets. In the Rational Asset Manager web client, you can
publish Rational System
Architect model content. You might use Rational System Architect to generate an
HTML representation of a model and then publish it or refer to it
as an asset.
- Other architects and developers can refer to the asset when they
review software designs and implementations:
- Development teams and other business and technical users can find,
evaluate, and use the asset.
- Software architects can use the system architecture model to guide
software designs.
- A software architect creates models, designs, and definitions
in a modeling tool, such as Rational Software
Architect or IBM WebSphere® Business Modeler that are based
on or require an enterprise architecture asset (created in Rational System Architect and
submitted to Rational Asset
Manager as an asset). The architect publishes content as an asset
for development teams.
- Stakeholders participate in the asset lifecycles that help govern
the review and approval of assets.
- Development teams use Rational Asset
Manager to view the architecture models so that they can guide implementation
and publish and reuse implementation assets.
- To connect architecture and implementation assets, stakeholders
can create relationships between assets.
To ensure that architectures are actionable, stakeholders
can require that an implementation follows the designs and architectures
that are in the system and software models.
- The enterprise architect searches for assets to review (or uses
a Rational System Architect
report) to verify their compliance before approving them. If you subscribe
to an asset, you are notified when the asset is ready to review.
For
example, the architect might confirm that implementation assets are
compliant with the enterprise architecture as specified in the system
model asset. Or, the architect might check to see what was implemented
in relation to an architecture. By using the relationships from a
model, the architect can see the related implementation assets and
review them for compliance with the enterprise architecture model
asset.