BFD: An Overview

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BFD An Overview

• Martin C. Stoufer
• DSD/DIDC
• July 9, 2004

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Summary

• Review
• What is the Software Development Cycle?
• What is Software Asset Management?
• Who is S.A.M. best suited for?
• Why does this breakdown so easy?
• What is BFD?
• What is it good for?
• Who can use BFD?
• Links Resources

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The Software Development Cycle
Integrate/Merge
Baseline
Develop
Verify
Test
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What is Software Asset Management?
The concept of treating your software project as
a commodity and not just a bunch of code that
works.

• Software inventory What are the projects?
• Version tracking Every version is a product
• Policies When to release? Who to release
  to?

• Procedures How do they get it?
• Technologies How are they getting it?
• Delivery Verify they got it correctly.

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Who is S.A.M. best suited for?

• The Lone Wolf
• No need. The code stays in one place, evolves
  slowly and organically.
• A small group of friends
• Maybe. Both the developers and code base are
  centralized.Specific goals are short term and
  verification testing is quick.
• The medium commercial venture
• Possibly. Money and investors drive the need.
  Legitimacy
• A large collaborative project
• Absolutely. Size, complexity, and dependencies
  require it.

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Why does this cycle breakdown so much?
Log/linear
Nothing gets done
Success
Amount of S.A.M.
Youre flipping burgers
Size of project
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Why does this cycle breakdown so much?
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What is BFD?

• Not an IDE.
• Drives the entire Software Development Cycle.
• Other products only do a specific subset
  successfully. Sometimes for big
• Tinderbox, ClearCase, CVS
• Introduces the concept of multi-project grouping
• Allows an entire software concept project to be
  presented as such.
• Enforces an ordered procession of steps.
• Wont perform miracles for the lazy or untrained.

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BFD Example
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Who can use BFD?

• Managers
• Those who decide to integrate/re-baseline
• Developers
• Those who write the code
• Software designers
• Those who design, test, and verify
• Not the end user!
• They should only enjoy a successful project

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Links Resources
BFD http//bfd.lbl.gov ClearCase http//www.ration
al.com/products/clearcase/index.jsp Tinderbox http
//www.mozilla.org/tinderbox.html