To design your
system, identify and
define your business processes and information model. Your processes
and information model can help you decide what communities, categories,
and asset types your system needs.
- An information
model is composed of asset types, category schemas,
relationship types, and asset attributes. In each community, lifecycles
define how assets are created, managed, and consumed.
- Each
community is configured for access control, roles, permissions,
review processes, and lifecycles of the assets of the community.
Communities
The
first level of governance in
a system is defined by its
Communities. You create a community by identifying
a target audience that has, or must use, assets that must be governed
in a certain way. Communities can have different foundations:
- Organization:
You might create a community that is based on the
organization chart.
- Role: You might create a community that
is based on a role that
crosses organizational boundaries, such as Analyst or Developer.
- Project: You might create a community that is based on a project,
or initiative.
System designers identify and then define
these communities.
After you define a community and specify its administrator, that administrator
defines the roles in the community. The community administrator also
defines the permissions of those roles and assigns users or groups
to the roles.
Asset types
System
designers must also consider
the users of the system and how they interact with assets in the following
ways:
- Using assets
- Finding assets
- Creating
assets
- Creating new versions of assets
- Deprecating
old assets
- Tracing assets
- Adding dependencies to
assets
If an asset type is global to all communities,
it is defined
at the repository level. Other types might be governed in a more secure
community or might be specific to a community. These types are configured
at the community level. Before you can configure asset types to a
community, that community must be defined.
Each asset type is
associated with a lifecycle, which includes states and actions that
are governed by roles and policies. Community administrators can configure
each lifecycle type to govern the business process, review process,
and asset lifecycle.
Collaboration, governance,
and maintenance
Consider
the following aspects of asset management when you design your system:
- Asset collaboration and understanding:
Plan the types and versions
of assets that are required and how are they related.
- Asset
governance:
Determine which policies must be met, who
must review certain assets, and how certain assets are accessed.
- Asset discovery and maintenance:
Determine the processes for
publishing, finding, maintaining, and retiring assets.
Dependencies
If you use
IBM® Rational® Asset Manager as
a library for shared files or common components, follow these practices
to ensure optimal asset reuse:
- Manage dependencies by
defining how one required version
of something depends on another version of something.
- Automate
the retrieval of required files and dependencies from
repositories.
- Develop tested sets of common components and
create assets based
on these sets.