Self-Hosted and Cloud: Flexible Deployment Options for Your Requirements Management with Jama Software

Efficient requirements management is vital for the success of any organization, especially in industries like aerospace, defense, and government, where compliance, security, and accuracy are paramount. Jama Software provides a sophisticated and adaptable requirements management solution, ensuring that your teams stay ahead in competitive and highly regulated fields.

But did you know that Jama Connect^® isn’t only available as a cloud solution? Depending on your organization’s unique needs, you can also choose a self-hosted deployment option. This flexibility is the perfect answer for industries requiring strict data sovereignty, air-gapped environments, or regulatory compliance.

While Jama Connect is well-known for our cloud deployment option, we actually originated as a self-hosted product more than twenty years ago. And two decades later, we remain committed to delivering the best platform and customer experience for our self-hosted and cloud customers.

Curious about which deployment option best suits your business? This post will break down when to choose Jama Connect Cloud versus the self-hosted deployment. We’ll also answer frequently asked questions to help you make informed decisions.

RELATED: Buyer’s Guide: Selecting a Requirements Management and Traceability Solution

When to Choose Jama Software Cloud vs. Self-Hosted

Jama Connect Cloud and Jama Connect Self-Hosted both empower effective requirements management. However, certain use cases demand one option over the other.

Jama Connect Cloud

Best for organizations that value ease of deployment, automatic updates, and seamless access. Key benefits include:

• Automatic Updates and Maintenance: Benefit from the latest features and security enhancements without manual effort.
• Anywhere, Anytime Access: Teams can access data on-demand, enabling global collaboration without roadblocks.
• Cost Efficiency: Eliminate the need for large IT infrastructure spendings; we handle hosting for you.
• Geographically Distributed Hosting: To ensure reliability and security, Jama Software hosts data in highly secure and strategic cloud locations. For customers in the US, we host data in Oregon, with a backup in Ohio. For EMEA customers, data will not leave the EU in line with GDPR. Two copies of the data is hosted in Ireland, with a backup in Germany. Jama Connect add-ons – Jama Connect Interchange™ and Jama Connect Advisor™ – can also be hosted in the US or EU.

Ideal for industries like tech startups, mid-sized enterprises, and companies prioritizing agility and scalability in requirements management.

Jama Connect Self-Hosted

Organizations working in highly regulated industries often need tighter control over their data. This deployment ensures robust security and customization on your own infrastructure. Benefits include:

• Data Sovereignty: Maintain control of sensitive data and ensure compliance with local regulations.
• Air-Gapped Environments: Operate without internet connectivity, ideal for sectors like aerospace and defense that mandate offline solutions.
• Regulatory Compliance: Handle development processes under strict standards like ITAR, ECJU, and EAR.

Ideal for industries such as government, aerospace, and defense, where security and compliance are non-negotiable.

Jama Connect Deployment Options

Jama Connect ensures that your needs are met, whether you lean toward cloud solutions or prefer in-house deployment. Here’s how Jama Connect offers robust flexibility in deployment:

Cloud Deployment

Our cloud-based SaaS solution takes the burden of infrastructure management off your shoulders. It ensures faster setup, seamless updates, and scalability as your teams grow. Collaborate easily across distributed teams while we manage the heavy lifting of security and operational efficiency.

Self-Hosted Deployment

Need control down to the last detail? Self-host Jama Connect within your IT infrastructure. This option provides your team with complete autonomy over data, operational configuration, and security measures. Your infrastructure, your rules.

Do you have questions about configuring a self-hosted deployment? Our experts are here to help. Schedule a consultation to explore the best option for your business.

RELATED: Jama Connect Amazon Web Service (AWS) GovCloud US Hosting

FAQ: Common Questions About Jama Software Deployment Options

Still not sure which deployment is right for you? Below are answers to some frequently asked questions.

Is switching between Jama Connect Cloud and Self-Hosted possible?

Yes, we offer migration support to ensure your data transitions smoothly between deployment types when upgrading or restructuring operations.

Do both deployments support compliance with industry standards?

Absolutely! Whether cloud-based or on-premises, Jama Connect supports compliance with requirements like ISO 26262, DO-178C, DO-254, and other critical regulatory standards. Your choice of deployment will not limit compliance functionality.

What level of IT support is required for the self-hosted deployment?

Self-hosted deployments require your organization to manage backups, updates, and server maintenance. However, we provide technical guidance to your IT teams to ensure a smooth setup.

Does the cloud option support multi-location teams?

Yes! With the cloud deployment, all team members, regardless of their geographic location, can work collaboratively without latency or access issues.

What security measures are in place for both deployment options?

• For Cloud: Ongoing updates, SOC2 certification, and AWS GovCloud hosting ensure enterprise-grade security.
• For Self-Hosted: You’ll adhere to your internal security protocols (including CMMC security requirements) and configurations.

Jama Software Provides a Smarter Approach to Requirements Management

When it comes to requirements management, there’s no “one-size-fits-all.” Jama Connect adapts to your unique organizational needs, whether you need a hands-off cloud solution or an air-gapped, team-managed infrastructure.

Experience seamless collaboration, reduce compliance risks, and ensure stakeholder alignment across your organization with Jama Software. Are you ready to optimize your requirements management process?

Explore our deployment options and see how Jama Connect aligns with your vision of compliance, security, and efficiency.

Learn More About Jama Software’s Deployment Options

Q&A: Integrating Jama Software with Jira for Better Product Development

We often receive questions around how Jama Connect^® integrates with other product development tools. And while many legacy requirements management tools only integrate with their own tool suites, Jama Connect was purposefully built to integrate with top tier solutions, allowing teams to leverage best-of-breed tools across the entire product development lifecycle. Integrating Jama Software with Jira is no exception.

When development solutions are disconnected, information and teams become siloed, often leading to rework, miscommunication, and missed deadlines. That’s why Jama Software offers a host of integrations to enhance and strengthen development workflows. One of the most popular being our integration with Atlassian^® Jira^®.

To comply with industry standards, engineering teams in regulated industries must achieve requirements traceability across siloed teams and tools. Most software development teams have chosen Jira as their preferred task management tool and refuse to switch to cumbersome legacy ALM tools that would negatively impact their productivity. Attempts to try and achieve Live Traceability with Jira or Jira plugins break down quickly as the complexity of approvals, versioning, change impact analysis, baselines and variant management overwhelm a task management approach.

The best-practice approach implemented by hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies and startups alike, is to use Jama Connect to create Live Traceability™ across a best-of-breed toolchain including Jira or Azure DevOps for the software development team. This approach simultaneously solves the need for Live Traceability AND causes no disruption to existing tools, processes, and even field names for the software development team in Jira.

Using Jama Connect to manage requirements and Jira to monitor tasks separately is a viable solution for many product companies. Those forward-thinking businesses who take advantage of the powerful integration between the two see much stronger management of complexity, traceability, requirements, and progress tracking.

Since we get this question so often, we’ve written about it on our blog and covered it more extensively in a webinar, explaining the benefit of connecting these two best-of-breed tools.

Watch the full webinar for an in-depth look at the Jama Connect integration with Jira:
Managing Hardware & Software Product Development Complexity with Jama Connect & Jira

In the webinar, Mike Frazier, Principal of Frazier Executive Consulting, and Kevin Andrewjeski, Senior Account Executive at Jama Software, walked through some of the key benefits of a Jama Connect + Jira integrated system.

At the conclusion of the presentation, Frazier and Andrewjeski fielded questions from those in attendance. Below you’ll find a slightly abbreviated version of the question-and-answer session on integrating Jama Software with Jira.

Q: We want to start using a more Agile approach or more Agile methodologies. Do Jama Connect and Jira support an Agile methodology?

Kevin Andrewjeski: Jama Connect, as a tool, is process agnostic. We have customers that are very Agile — internally we use Jama Connect in an Agile way. Also, we have customers that are hardware focused. And then, of course, we have folks that are blended with hardware and software, with waterfall and Agile mixed in together.

So, the tool is very configurable and flexible to fit into your preferred process rather than having your teams try to fit into a process that we are identifying for you.

RELATED: Minimize Late-Stage Changes by Linking Requirements and Tests with Development Activity

Mike Frazier: To add to that, from a transition perspective, at Xilinx we used a waterfall approach for IP development. It might take a year or so to build out a brand-new piece of IP. But then, as we iterated that product — typically Xilinx would release its software on a quarterly basis, and therefore our IP could be updated on a quarterly basis as well — we decided to use Agile for some of those “incremental releases.”

What that did for us is it helped us do smaller chunks of work in a more predictable, smaller amount of time for those quarterly updates.

Now, I will caution companies about how it does require a mindset change, as I’m sure there are those of you that have transitioned from a waterfall approach to an Agile approach. It’s not at all classic, like a waterfall approach.

It requires people who need to be trained on what it’s like to develop an Agile environment. And if there are people within your company who are Agile program managers, take advantage of that.

If not, take advantage of companies that can help you develop your Agile skills. It’s not something you should do without being aware that it does require a shift in mentality for all the stakeholders involved.

RELATED: How to Achieve Live Traceability™ with Jira^® for Software Development Teams

Learn more about the benefits of integrating Jama Software with Jira in our blog post, “How Combining Jama and Jira Improves Your Development Process.”

Q: Product managers and systems engineers are the obvious targets of the requirements management tools and processes. What about the rest of the engineering team? Architects, designers, developers, for example?

MF: The beauty of it is if you use a tool like Jama Connect to capture your requirements, and you’re soliciting input and feedback throughout, and using some of the abilities of the tool throughout the requirements capture process, and you’re engaging with your architectural team, potentially all the way down to lead level engineering teams, it creates more of a sense of inclusion. And it also creates that collaboration and communication.

I think maybe the typical thought process people go through is you create a marketing requirements document and you “throw it over the fence” to engineering for feedback.

What tools like Jama Connect will do, as long as you include the appropriate stakeholders from not only engineering but other downstream organizations such as production or operations, and other organizations that typically aren’t involved in the requirements management process, you’re going to get all of that stakeholder feedback earlier in the development cycle and minimize surprises. So, I think it could be used for all aspects of the organization.

RELATED: How to Create Live Traceability™ With Jama Connect and Jira

KA: To add on to Mike’s comments, from a Jama Software perspective, it’s a way to encourage collaboration. So, you may have core users in marketing, engineering, depending on your structure, that are really the people creating these requirements and managing these requirements, but you might have a broader group of people participating in providing feedback and a clarification.

And so those users, that we term as collaborators, can actually participate in the system without a paid license so that you’re really encouraging that feedback and collaboration, especially cross functionally, with the ultimate goal of making sure you’re building the right product.

Developing complex products with partners requires a common vision. Learn how better requirements management helps better facilitate the collaboration process by watching our webinar.

Q: Can you speak to some of the training, some of the education that you offer on how to create effective requirements?

MF: Jama Software does a very good job offering white papers and other resources around best practices for requirements, test, and risk management.

Personally, the way I get involved in requirements management with my clients is typically during the product development lifecycle. Most of my clients are looking for help on the front end of the development cycle, where they’re struggling with a scenario where you have one-third of bug escapes due to poor requirements.

Q: Does Jama Software provide a solution for the Jama/Jira integration?

KA: Yes, we offer a seamless solution for integrating Jama Software with Jira , as well as Jama Connect to other tools. The integration technology itself is from our integration partner (TaskTop) not something we create internally. But we can help you get configured and installed as part of the implementation of Jama Connect, so they’re coupled together.

Learn more about integrating Jama Connect and Atlassian Jira to improve visibility and alignment across your development teams and lifecycle by downloading our datasheet.

Supply chain collaboration: Interactive or ReqIF. Which is right for you?

There are two main types of requirement collaboration in the supply chain: Interactive and ReqIF. While interactive collaboration is on the rise and offers the most benefits, there are cases where it is not feasible. Jama Software supports both methods and, in this post, we will discuss each method’s use-case and pros/cons.

Interactive Collaboration: The High-fidelity Option

We all know that collaboration in product development helps improve quality, reduces risk and speeds up development. For this reason, Jama Connect^® has context-based, interactive collaboration built into the platform. Reviews are a formal, effective collaboration method that guides teams in fulfilling regulatory requirements.

In addition to using these industry leading capabilities in-house, our customers frequently use these capabilities to collaborate with external stakeholders. For instance, Jama Connect allows you to invite reviewers simply by email (Jama Connect licenses include more than enough reviewer licenses for this purpose). This works extremely well in practice. In fact, one medical device developer, RBC Medical Innovations (now known as Vantage Medtech), was able to shed hundreds of team-member days during development to save $150,000 in cost savings per project.

As a fully web-based software as a service (SaaS) product, Jama Connect offers customers a standard and secure web interface for cross-department or cross-company collaboration. Inviting customers or suppliers into your Jama Connect system is as easy as sending an email. User security can limit what is seen and allows for granular control of permissions. Our full version tracking enables everyone to see what has changed, who changed it and all impacts on upstream/downstream traceability.

RELATED: The Limitations, Drawbacks, and Risks of Using Legacy Requirements Management Tools

The Alternative: Controlled Data Exchange via ReqIF

Data exchange between organizations is nothing new, and many organizations have collaborated for decades, typically by exchanging documents. While this approach technically works, it results in unstructured data that provides no traceability, no understanding of changes between versions and no easy way to provide structured feedback.

The automotive industry is a great example of complexity across the supply chain with OEM’s traditionally working with hundreds of suppliers. It’s not unusual to find tens of thousands of requirements in an automotive specification, so managing these requirements is a challenge. In response, the industry developed an international standard for the lossless exchange of requirements called Requirements Interchange Format (ReqIF) and the standard was finalized in 2011.

A requirements exchange with ReqIF has some similarities to the old (and dreaded) document exchange process: One party exports a ReqIF file and hands it to the other party. The transfer can happen via a portal upload, automated exchange or even as an email attachment.

But here’s where the similarities end: A ReqIF file contains structured requirements data consisting of individual requirements with visibility into structure, attributes, related elements, and traces. ReqIF also supports incremental updates. If one party creates another version and exports a month later, you could import that version into your environment and the tool would show you clearly which elements, attributes, and traces have changed. For instance, you could use suspect links to re-validate only those items that have changed. Compared to trading .pdf files, which yes believe it or not many organizations still do, this is an extremely significant time saver and error avoiding capability.

While the standard is certainly more advanced than simple document sharing, it does have drawbacks. Not every tool adheres to the standards in the correct way. Data exported can be missing embedded images, required fields in one system are not required in another and user information (meta-data) is not universally available.

RELATED: Jama Connect in the Digital Engineering Ecosystem

Collaboration via ReqIF

ReqIF is commonly used to solicit feedback from a supplier. A producer could export the requirements for a supplier, including attributes for providing status feedback and comments. The supplier would then import the ReqIF file into the tool of their choice, where they could fill out the supplier attributes and send the resulting export back.

In addition, they could start integrating the imported requirements into their own development system. For example, they could establish traceability from the customer requirements through to design while keeping the process invisible to their customer.

Image Source: IREB Magazine

There are other use cases that ReqIF supports as well, but for all of them, the foundation is a controlled asynchronous exchange of structured requirements that keeps individual items, attributes and traces intact. Jama Connect supports this workflow and we have many customers that are using it today.

Bottom Line: How to Collaborate?

If you are using Jama Connect, the built-in collaboration capabilities are the most effective way to work together. Having 100% Live Traceability™ has been proven to increase product quality while reducing time to market.

However, if you are working with people outside your organization, that may not be able to collaborate using your Jama Connect instance a ReqIF-based collaboration could be an acceptable alternative.

Learn more about the benefits of upgrading your requirements management process with our paper, “Getting the Most from a Requirements Management Tool.”

One of the best parts of my role at Jama Software® is working with firms and people with different sizes and products, and services. I enjoy learning about their goals and challenges. I really enjoy geeking out and digging into processes and associated tools to identify areas for improvement.  One question I get asked often is something like “I have PLM, why do I need Jama Connect?” 

It is a fair question, so let’s dig in. 

It may be helpful to define Product Lifecycle Management. Instead of using the definitions from the major PLM players (Aras, Siemens, PTC, Dassault) I am using a couple of internet sources – because the internet is always right. Wikipedia and Investopedia define PLM respectively as:  

• The process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its inception through the engineering, design, and manufacture, as well as the service and disposal of manufactured products. PLM integrates people, data, processes and business systems and provides a product information backbone for companies and their extended enterprise. Ref Wikipedia 
• The handling of a good as it moves through the typical stages of its product life: development and introduction, growth, maturity/stability, and decline. Ref Investopedia 

Seems solid. But notice it does not say anything about a PLM tool. That is because PLM is a collection of processes first and THEN software tools enable and operationalize those processes. Everyone gets hung up on the tool which is a mistake. Build a solid process and then assemble the best of breed tools to compliment your processes.  

Let’s illustrate this with an example. As I write this looking out the window I realize I need to mow my lawn tonight. The process of mowing the lawn is really broken down into lower level processes that I can choose the best tools for me to perform the needed processes. Since I’m a bit of a geek I had to make a chart to illustrate this.    

Each low-level process can be accomplished with a number of tools. I highlighted the options I use in red. For my needs these are best of breed. I care about speed and general cleanliness, so I use a riding mower and a backpack blower and I mow once per week.  If I wanted a golf course quality lawn I’d mow three times per week and use the old school rotary mowers as seen at the golf course. The bottom line is that you pick the tools that best accomplish your processes and their goals.   

Single Source of Truth 

By assembling the best of breed tools, you are able to ensure your team is able to operate in the manner YOU need to. But what about my data, you may ask.  I don’t want to have data in three different systems. Absolutely correct. You want a single source of truth!    

Lionel Grealou, a Digital Transformation evangelist that I follow discussed this topic in his blog, noting that “SSoT is often mistaken for a single database or repository for all data; rather it implies an intelligent enterprise data model constructed for optimum data integration and control across multiple sources, avoiding duplication and redundancy.” 

That is an important distinction. We are advocating for a single SOURCE of truth as opposed to a single database of truth. This means that there is a single master of a given set of data. Using modern software platforms that have robust AND OPEN APIs (or through integration hub providers) it is a straightforward task to connect different platforms (and their databases) into your PLM process. 

Taking this approach ensures that data is authored and managed in a single location and shared to all those that need it. Users do not need to know where it came from they just know it gets to the right person, at the right time, in the right format.   

Forming a Digital Thread 

Let us unpack that a bit further. Using my lawn mowing example, if I have a requirement to mow my land in one hour. Those requirements may decompose into the width of my mower (50”) and the horsepower of the motor (22 HP). Those requirements can be passed to the systems engineering and mechanical design teams for their design tasks. The 50” geometric requirement will directly feed the mechanical design. The horsepower requirement will drive the system design and may result in reusing an engine or designing a new one. Again, I made a rudimentary illustration that I think explains itself.   

The takeaway here is that we can connect our people and processes. When we do, we support their needs by allowing them to utilize the tools that best fit their needs. This should yield efficiencies and positively impact the form’s bottom line.   

The other outcome is that by connecting data, not only do we have a single source of truth, but we have also created traceability throughout our processes and data. The fancy new term for that is digital thread.  You can learn more about the digital thread by reading this blog, written by Jama Software’s CEO. 

As a note – I would be remiss if I did not note that I realize that I have glossed over the specifics of data models, storage, and APIs in play here. They are important, however, for the purposes of this discussion they are not necessary.  

Best in Breed for the Win 

Returning back to our question. In response, I’ll typically ask what PLM system they are referring to. I’ll also follow up with how they are using it – most PLM users only use their PLM systems for PDM. Next, I’ll need to understand if they have licenses to the PLM systems requirements package (if there is one), if they have the capability to customize the system, etc.  Some PLM systems have bolt on RM applications that still need to be connected to integrate data.  The answer is often a blank stare followed by a complaint about their PLM system.   

Ok. So forget trying to shoehorn requirements management and systems engineering into your old PLM system. Why not take the modern approach and utilize a model-based SaaS platform like Jama Connect for your systems engineering and pass the data to your PLM system?   

Industry analyst, Oleg Shilovitsky from BeyondPLM has weighed in on this topic, stating:    

The PLM paradigm is shifting from central to decentralized. The paradigm of connected digital services is also a departure from isolated SQL-based architectures running in a single company. The data is connected, web services keep all the history and provide access to a distributed version of truth. Such modern architecture is also continuously updated, which makes the problem of system upgrades a thing in the past and irrelevant as everyone is running on the same version of the same software. Furthermore, the cost of systems can be optimized and SaaS systems can serve small and medium-size companies with the same efficiency as large ones.  

Hmmm…  Accessible data with optimized web services with configuration management and cost efficiency. Sounds like a winner to me!   

Yes, Jama Connect is Compatible with Your PLM 

Putting all of this together is a matter of making the connections I suggested in the data flow image above. In my simplistic example, we could use REST API capability and federation to ensure a SSOT. Jama Connect data (requirements, system architecture, etc.) would be stored in Aras Innovator as federated data to be usable by the detailed design, mfg, and quality teams – yet not be editable since it is owned by Jama Connect. The test data (i.e. data files) would the reverse, federated back to Jama Connect to support the validation and testing processes but owned by Aras.   

Obviously, this is a simple example. There are details in play like how much you have customized your environment, but the basic idea remains the same: Use best in class platforms and connect the data to those that need it.   

If you would enjoy talking further, please drop me a line and we can get together, I’m always happy to talk shop!  dewing@jamasoftware.com.   

Product development is rapidly changing. In this era of constant market disruption, development teams are under unyielding pressure to improve quality and get products to market faster. To meet these quality demands and improve speed to market, development teams are focusing on improving one of the most vital steps in their process: requirements management.

But even with greater emphasis on requirements management, siloed teams that are using their own specialized tools can create confusion across the development cycle — and lead to waste and delays.

This post will walk through some of the issues modern development teams are facing and explore the solutions, but for the full breakdown, please check out our webinar, “When Jira and Confluence Are Not Enough: Optimizing Agile Requirements Management for Enterprise Software Development.”

Why Requirements Management?

Several key factors are leading the shift toward greater attention to requirements management:

• Intelligent devices such as autonomous vehicles continue to disrupt the marketplace and create both software challenges and risks.
• Devices connected to people are fueling the ongoing digital transformation, which leads development teams away from a document-based approach and toward more modern solutions. This move, if not properly thought through and executed, can result in disjointed and misaligned teams across the development lifecycle.
• The trend toward more product development governance produces greater regulatory pressure.
• The push for increased speed to market has led to a drive for process modernization and the adoption of Agile platforms such as Atlassian® Jira®.

But all of this change and modernization results in increased complexity. Complicated development cycles need automation and more modern tools. Work must be coordinated across hardware and Agile software teams using different tools and methodologies. Connected products introduce security risks, mandating increased due diligence across requirements, design, and testing. Faster iterations and evolving solutions make regulatory compliance more difficult and time consuming.

A recent study from Project Management Institute revealed that the second most common reason for product failure is poor requirements management. In addition, 51% of program funds are wasted due to poor requirements management.

Software development teams that want to remain competitive need to transform work processes and adopt new solutions. Jira, Confluence®, and other single-stack tools, while valuable, are often not enough to ensure compliance, quality, cost control, and speed to market in complex product development. Plus, teams also need robust requirements management solutions and integrations across the toolchain.

Learn how enterprise companies can remain competitive in a start-up market by scaling Agile practices across the organization in this blog post.

Integrating Best-of-Breed Solutions Across the Toolchain

For many years, having a single stack solution seemed like the best way forward for product development teams. Large corporations invested heavily in these single stacks, believing that with everything in one place, teams would have fewer silos and easier reporting. However, these single-stack solutions were never intended to serve all functions for all teams.

It’s important for teams to have access to the tools that best support their specific needs. Best-of-breed tools support distinctive and varied needs for specialization. Focusing on depth rather than breadth can help optimize key stages of software development and delivery, as well as unburden the single-stack tools. Investing heavily in one specialized tool means optimizing a key piece of the process of development.

However, problems arise when development teams can’t communicate across the toolchain. Teams end up duplicating work, wasting time, or focusing efforts in the wrong place.

A fragmented toolchain doesn’t need to cause waste, communication breakdowns, or confusion. Integrating the toolchain is key.

Connecting Jama Software to the Product Development Toolchain

The first step in improving the product development process is to take control of requirements management. Jama Connect makes it easy for teams to define, align, and execute on what they need to build, reducing lengthy time cycles, wasteful rework, and effort spent on proving compliance. Jama Software’s unique combination of core capabilities solves some of the most challenging issues modern product development teams face.

Jama Connect offers:

• Live traceability
• Ease of use
• Change management across engineering teams
• Robust collaboration and decision tracking
• Streamlined compliance reporting
• Test management

Jama Software provides a purpose-built, integrated solution designed to scale as your business grows. It’s a best-in-breed requirements management solution that allows teams to use the solutions and processes best suited for their jobs across the ALM ecosystem.

TaskTop Integration with Jama Connect

The second step in getting control of complex product development is integrating the toolchain. Through the extended solution with our integration partner TaskTop, product and engineering teams can connect product development through execution to ensure everyone is working off the most current requirements and stakeholders are aligned and engaged.

TaskTop allows all teams and silos to use the specialized tools that are necessary for their particular piece of product development. By integrating solutions across the toolchain, TaskTop automates communication and brings the work to the team in its own specialized tool.

Toolchain integration through TaskTop will:

• Bridge silos
• Eliminate duplicate data entry
• Provide model-based integration

See how Jama Software’s integration solutions can help ensure traceability and alignment across the product development lifecycle.

A new era requires new tools and new processes. While Jira, Confluence, and other tools are highly effective in the right environment and for the right purpose, they aren’t always sufficient across the entire development cycle. Through robust requirements management with Jama Connect and toolchain integration with TaskTop, development teams can meet the demands of users, stakeholders, and the marketplace.

To learn more about how Jama and TaskTop can help your team meet market demands for complex product development, view our webinar “When Jira and Confluence Are Not Enough: Optimizing Agile Requirements Management for Enterprise Software Development.”

This is a guest post from Steve Neemeh, LSS President and Chief Solutions Architect, LHP Engineering Solutions. It originally appeared on the LHP blog. LHP is a partner of Jama Software. 

Self-driving vehicles are coming. There’s a certain sense of inevitability. Mentions appear almost daily in the news with players such as Tesla, Uber, Google/Waymo, and Apple spending millions on development. Yet the public is uncertain of the value and safety of such vehicles.

If autonomous vehicles (AVs) are to find acceptance, the industry must produce vehicles worthy of trust. The characteristics on which trustworthiness depends, and the path for trustworthy AV development, are described below.

Figure 1- Mckinsey & Company Self-Driving Vehicle Revolution Exhibit

The Value of AVs

Just because such vehicles may be possible, is this evolution a good (or, the right) thing to do?

If implemented correctly and carefully, the move to fully-autonomous vehicles can provide real gains for society.

Highway safety – Automakers and civil engineers have made great strides in past decades in reducing highway injuries and deaths. Today’s cars include crumple zones, airbags, collapsible steering columns, and anti-lock brakes. Roadways have improved-traction surfaces, energy-absorbing barriers, and better signage and alert systems. The driver, however, remains the largest contributor to highway fatalities in the U.S. with 30% due to excessive speed, 30% from driving under the influence, and 16% attributed to distracted driving.

In the AV world, vehicles do not suffer from a human driver’s inattention, bad attitude, or inebriated operation. Instead, vehicles are under constant electronic guidance, in continual communication with the supporting infrastructure (e.g. GPS), and in a perpetual state of monitoring surrounding vehicles, obstacles, and environmental conditions. Vehicles, as a group, maintain proper positions and adequate spacing, resulting in significantly fewer injuries and deaths.

The functional safety standard ISO 26262 is a critical component of automotive development. Jama Software and LHP have teamed up to give developers an overview of the standard, and highlight its recent changes.

Read the whitepaper.

Traffic flow and roadway capacity – Highways and city streets can be expanded only so much to accommodate growing populations. AVs can make better use of available roadways.

In slow-moving traffic, human drivers tend to be selfish and jam too tightly together (“If I leave three car lengths open, everyone will pull in front of me”); yet, that space is exactly what is needed to allow more freedom to enter a freeway and to change lanes. AVs take the emotion out of driving decisions. On open, flowing highways, the safe following distance for human-operated vehicles could be reduced by a factor of five or more for AVs in close communication, thereby allowing more vehicles per mile.

Energy consumption – With communication between vehicles, the need to brake by one AV could be signaled to those nearby, allowing the group to slow as a whole and avoid the accordion effect which afflicts human-driven cars. This sort of coordinated action enables smoother transitions in speed and better energy usage.

Transport availability – Though services such as Uber and Lyft can provide door-to-door transportation for those unwilling or unable to drive, they do not always fit the situation. AVs can carry young teenagers to their destination without parents worrying about the integrity of a service driver. For people with physical limitations (blindness; health problems; physical disability), the AV can provide transport that is both familiar and appropriately outfitted to suit any special needs.

Simple convenience – The AV eliminates the need to drive. Passengers work or socialize as the vehicle moves along. Shoppers step out at the front of the store while the vehicle searches out a parking space on its own.

Public Response

Though today’s consumers recognize the potential advantages of AVs, they are still cautious. Recent surveys (in 2017 and 2019) by the American Automobile Association showed that 55% of U.S. drivers feel that most cars will have the ability to self-drive by 2029. Yet, today, over 70% fear riding in a self-driving car and 54% feel that their safety is at risk if sharing the road with AVs. In a 2017 survey, insurer AIG found that over 70% of U.S. respondents had concerns about AV security (hackers taking control of vehicles) and privacy (loss of personal data).

As with previous technological evolutions, AVs cannot be pushed on the public; instead, people must find enough comfort to accept or even demand new devices, especially when their safety is involved.

Elisha Otis installed the first passenger elevator in 1857. It was more than a decade before potential passengers exhibited significant trust even though early elevators were manually controlled by a human operator who opened and closed the doors, put the car in motion, and brought it level with the floor where people were to exit. The driverless elevator was created in 1900, yet it was the 1940’s before it started to see wide acceptance.

Trust in elevators was built slowly with the addition of various devices intended to ensure safety (springs and latches that would catch a falling elevator; interlocks on doors preventing opening onto empty shafts) and comfort (a soothing voice issuing from speakers to calm the nervous rider). 

Could collaborating with competitors boost autonomous vehicle development? Read our blog post.

Building Trust

Self-driving cars will likewise require demonstrations of safe operation, time, and familiarity to find trust and acceptance.

The process has already begun with the current rollout of driver assistance features such as lane departure warnings, adaptive headlights, and collision avoidance systems. Continued incremental steps will further enhance driver/passenger confidence in the technology’s abilities.

Another stage may be demonstration of AV performance in closed environments such as providing public transportation at airports or on a university or commercial campus.

A good user interface may also help. Studies at Intel, Stanford, and Northwestern University all suggest that trust is improved by visual or audio feedback. Passengers find more faith in the AV’s competence if the vehicle advises why it is taking specific actions (such as voice announcing that the vehicle is slowing for a pedestrian).

Unfortunately, trust is hard-won and easily lost. Two high-profile fatal accidents in 2018 involving self-driving technology raised immediate concerns in the minds of the public and governments.

Vehicles Worthy of Trust

To avoid such incidents and maintain growth in public acceptance, the makers of AVs must build systems that are worthy of trust.

This autonomous evolution is much more complex than previous technological advancements. AVs must be able to detect and respond to numerous factors including obstacles, traffic signals, and weather conditions. Humans can distinguish between a tumbleweed and a child entering the road. Humans can contend with other vehicles which might or might not be self-driving. However, autonomous systems are much better at optimizing the driving experience to vastly increase efficiency and safety. For example, the safest distance for following a vehicle is where the second one is nearly touching the bumper of the one in front of it. This level of driving accuracy cannot be achieved reliably with humans but may well be within the realm of possibility for autonomous systems. However, it is an enormous undertaking to place such responsibility and discretion into an electronic system with expectations of safe, lightning-fast, dependable decisions.

This AV trustworthiness requires holistic consideration of five characteristics:

Safety – Ensures that a system operates without unacceptable risk of physical injury or damage to the health of people.

Security – Protects a system from unintended or unauthorized access, modification, or misuse.

Reliability – The ability of a system or component to perform its required functions under stated conditions for a specified time duration.

Resilience – The ability of a system or component to maintain an acceptable level of service in the face of disruption. The main purpose of resilience is to prevent or at least reduce any serious impact of a disruption to the system by damage or loss of operation.

Privacy – Protects the right of individuals to control or influence what information related to them may be collected and stored and by whom and to whom that information may be disclosed.

Figure 2 – Industrial Internet Consortium Security Model

These elements are generally considered as separate specialties, but should be engineered and managed as one integrated discipline because, if one piece is compromised, the overall integrity and trustworthiness of the system are undermined.

Convergence, Standardization, and Legislation

Work is progressing on each of the five characteristics to varying degrees but, unfortunately, in independent silos and in somewhat disparate directions. Though initial divergence is common with new technologies, the industry must begin to converge and standardize.

The airline industry and railroad systems both have strict standards and regulatory bodies. Automated highway vehicles must reach the same level. Currently, the industry has reached no agreement on conditions, abilities, or baselines that must be in place before an autonomous/connected vehicle is placed on the road.

A Fortune 100 semiconductor company is navigating the growing complexity of autonomous vehicles with modern requirements management.

Read the story.

A start has been made. ISO 26262 (Road Vehicles – Functional Safety) defines a process that will lead to high quality (trustworthy) results IF and only IF the industry can define the boundaries and requirements to be achieved. In autonomous driving, the variables and scenarios may number in the billions and are potentially non-static if artificial intelligence is used in design.

In addition, two new standards are under development:

• ISO 21434 (Automotive Cybersecurity) which builds on, and works in concert with, SAE J3061 (Cybersecurity Guidebook for Cyber-Physical Vehicle Systems)
• ISO/PAS 21448 (Road Vehicles – Safety of the Intended Functionality, or SOTIF) that attempts to provide guidance on design, verification, and validation measures to avoid risks resulting from functional insufficiencies and foreseeable misuse.

If the industry cannot move itself to effective standardization, the combined action of litigation, liability, and/or government regulation will likely intervene. This has happened before. In Ralph Nader’s “Unsafe at Any Speed”, his 1965 commentary on the automotive industry’s lackadaisical approach to safety caused a public uproar which led to the passage of seatbelt laws across the U.S. For AVs, a lack of convergence and standardization could likewise lead to design by legislation.

Figure 3 – The convergence of safety and security standards

Ecosystem for Trustworthy AV Development

LHP Engineering Solutions provides expertise to the automotive industry on topics including embedded controls, telematics, and data analytics. LHP has defined an ecosystem consisting of seven necessary focus areas that, if pursued together, will place the development of autonomous vehicle technologies on the right track regarding safety, standardization, and automation.

AUTOSAR (AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture) – Founded in 2003, AUTOSAR is a “worldwide development partnership of vehicle manufacturers, suppliers, service providers and companies from the automotive electronics, semiconductor and software industry.” The association aims to standardize the software architecture for automotive electronic control units. This creates the opportunity to automate software testing which should result in improved software quality and reliability.

Functional Safety – Safety in autonomous driving is of the utmost importance and is key to trustworthiness. Functional Safety relates to a system or its components operating correctly in response to inputs, including the detection, mitigation, and/or correction of malfunctions.

Cybersecurity – Trustworthiness cannot be realized without a strong foundation in cyber security. Though systems may be designed for safety, resilience, and reliability, the public may experience havoc and hazards if those systems are compromised by a malicious series of attacks. Cyber security provides the basis for assuring the integrity of the safety, reliability, resilience, and privacy characteristics of automotive systems.

Model-Based Development – Simulation of on-road vehicles scenarios is essential to validation of self-driving vehicles. Developing software to simulate real-life environments allows testing to be done on the computer rather than on the road.

Application Lifecycle Management – ALM encompasses the methods and processes through which software is developed, managed, and controlled. A well-defined ALM system ensures that the development team is efficiently working toward a common goal and that the end user receives software suited for the purpose intended.

Test Systems – With millions of lines of code in AVs, establishment of automated testing systems and processes will be crucial considering the safety-critical environment.

Analytics – Vehicles communicating with each other and back to the design team will produce large amounts of data. Analytics incorporates the storage and interpretation of data and identification of consequential patterns.

Summary

Mankind can gain value from AVs, but only if the public perceives that the benefits outweigh the costs and potential hazards. Trust will be central to public acceptance.

To gain that trust, the industry must understand the characteristics of trustworthiness and should align on an ecosystem that can produce vehicles worthy of trust.

Please contact LHP Engineering Solutions, a Jama Software partner, for more information on how it can help your organization prepare for the future of the automotive industry.

ISO 26262 is an evolving standard for automotive development. Read how recent changes to the standard impact traceability, risk management, validation & verification in this joint white paper from Jama Software and LHP, “The Impact of ISO 26262 on Automotive Development.”

As in the majority of industries today, the complexity of avionics products is rapidly expanding. In contrast, budgets and development schedules are shrinking as teams work to ensure that product safety remains the first priority.

To help Jama’s avionics customers develop safe, quality products on expedited timelines, we’ve teamed up with the safety-critical experts at AFuzion. The result is our Avionics Services offering, which provides teams with an out-of-the-box configuration of Jama Connect specifically tailored for avionics development along with customized training and documentation templates.

Given the forward-thinking nature of our avionics customers, we knew we needed a trusted partner and thought leader to put together this comprehensive package. With offices in New York and Los Angeles, as well as more around the world, AFuzion offers safety-critical certification and consulting for innovators on the cutting edge of avionics, in addition to training and workshops.

Vance Hilderman, CEO and cofounder of AFuzion, calls his team “senior aviation and safety-critical engineers with an average of 20-plus years of engineering experience – plenty of gray hair and hopefully gray matter.”

We spoke with Hilderman to learn more about how Jama Connect customers can leverage AFuzion’s services to develop stronger avionics products.

Q: Can you talk briefly talk about AFuzion, the industries you serve, and the value you offer your customers?

A: Most of our work is aviation, but we also do automotive, satellites, ground systems, spacecraft, missiles, civil aircraft, and military aircraft. Our engineers have worked with 95 of the world’s 100 largest aviation companies. Though most of our work is engineering development, we also do certification, mentoring, and training. Interestingly, we’ve trained 22,000 engineers in aviation development standards, which is more than all 30 of our competitors combined. We also have a large library of safety-critical whitepapers, all developed by us.

Q: Why is requirements management a central concern for your customers?

A: AFuzion teaches that good requirements and good requirements management are key to avoiding erroneous assumptions and creating project success. Project success is created, planned, executed, and measured. You need great tools for that, and such is our reason for standardizing on Jama Connect.

What are examples of weak, satisfactory, and great avionics requirements? Learn more in our white paper, “Aviation Requirements for Airborne & Ground-Based Software/Hardware.”

Q: What AFuzion solutions or services are currently available with Jama, and what benefits do they deliver for our customers?

A: AFuzion’s safety-critical checklists and templates are hugely popular, especially for aviation. Companies get a working solution out of the box and can avoid rework and delays – it’s a huge jump-start to success, especially when used in conjunction with Jama Connect. And AFuzion can provide standards training while Jama provides the corresponding requirements management training. For the clients, it’s a win-win-win.

Q: What’s the best way to leverage Jama to comply with DO-178, DO-254, and ISO 26262 or IEC-61508?

A: First, get training in requirements management from Jama and the relevant standard from AFuzion. Then initiate Jama deployment and AFuzion’s processes and templates. Consider a gap analysis from AFuzion to show how to best minimize rework and optimize successful project certification and compliance.

Q: What are some of the biggest mistakes or misconceptions you see avionics professionals make when they’re first starting to develop safety-critical products?

A: One: Proceeding without a written plan and alternatives. Two: Outsourcing. Engineering is incredibly complex already and it helps when you are all in the same room, same time zone, and speaking the same language. Outsourcing without a CMMI level 4 compliance playbook increases risk. Now, we don’t mind when companies try that: Over half of our clients come to us after they fail at that. But we’d rather see them reduce costs by succeeding first and avoiding failure.

Q: Are aerospace companies doing their best to keep their products secure? What are the cybersecurity threats facing the aerospace industry?

A: Great question. In fact, the FAA and EASA just escalated cybersecurity to the highest level and mandated that all aviation companies deploy proven solutions based upon DO-326A (ED-202A in Europe) before year-end 2019. AFuzion’s aviation cybersecurity whitepaper is very popular and available for free download at our website.

Companies need training, frameworks, and cybersecurity tools throughout development and product deployment/operations, and AFuzion handles all of this. Our new aviation cybersecurity DO-326A / ED-202A training is proving hugely popular: We just had a sold-out class in Munich during Aerospace Tech Week. Threats are rapidly increasing worldwide, so the solutions need to keep up. AFuzion will help ensure that happens.

Q: What are some success stories you’ve heard from people using AFuzion’s services?

A: In just the past three months, we’ve helped companies certify 20-plus aviation products; taught 1,500 engineers how to succeed with DO-178C, DO-254, and ARP4754A; co-developed 10 aviation airborne- and ground-based systems; and have maintained a 100% client repeat rate, where clients call us back for additional work or say they intend to. That’s honestly the greatest reward. Many people think aerospace is staid and boring. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Aerospace is real technology, real money, real results.

---

View our datasheet to learn more about Jama Software’s Avionics Services package. And, to see more information specific to the aerospace and defense industries, we’ve compiled a handy list of valuable resources for you!

SEE MORE RESOURCES

 

Close gaps in product development with Jama Connect™ and LDRA

Interested in closing gaps in your product development lifecycle? It’s no secret that developers of mission-critical software are facing increasingly complex system requirements and stringent standards for safety and efficacy. That’s why Jama Software has partnered with LDRA to deliver a test validation and verification solution for safety- and security-critical embedded software. LDRA has been a market leader in verification and software quality tools for over 40 years. They serve customers across the aerospace and defense, industrial energy, automotive, rail, and medical device industries.

Integrating TÜV SÜD-certified Jama Connect with the LDRA tool suite gives teams bidirectional traceability across the development lifecycle. This transparency helps development teams build higher-quality products and get to market faster while mitigating risk. Whether teams are working from a standards-based V model or applying an Agile, Spiral, or Waterfall methodology, employing Jama Connect in concert with the TÜV SÜD- and TÜV SAAR-certified LDRA tool suite closes the verification gaps in the development lifecycle, helping to ensure the delivery of safe and secure software.

Let’s dive into some details to understand the value of using Jama Connect and the LDRA tool suite.

Requirements and test cases form the bond between Jama Connect™ and LDRA

Product managers and engineers use Jama Connect to manage requirements and testing from idea through development, integration, and launch. Managing requirements in the Jama Connect platform allows users to align teams, track decisions, and move forward with confidence that they are building the product or system they set out to build.

LDRA imports Jama requirements and test cases, mirroring the structure and levels of traceability established from the decomposition of stakeholder requirements down to software requirements and test cases. With the Jama artifacts in the LDRA tool suite, traceability down to the code can be realized and verification and validation of requirements can begin.

During the Jama test case import, the user can choose the type of test case it corresponds to (e.g. unit test, system test, code review test) and let LDRA create a test artifact that will invoke the proper part of the LDRA tool suite and realize that test case type.

Part of realizing Jama test cases in the LDRA tool suite includes the ability to follow the steps defined in the Jama test case description (e.g. inputs, outputs, expected results). Test cases executed by the LDRA tool suite can be executed either on a host machine, in a virtual environment, or on the actual target hardware. Verification results are captured, and Pass/Fail status results are produced. The verification results can then be exported from the LDRA tool suite into the Jama test case verification status field.

By way of the Jama Test Run feature, the change in verification status and included user notes can be logged and committed. Additionally, if the user desires, the LDRA tool suite verification results can also be exported into the Jama requirement verification status field, giving the Jama user additional touch points to analyze.

Another benefit of the integration is Jama’s ability to create, link, assign, track, and manage defects discovered during testing with the LDRA tool suite.

Partnering with standards and safety experts on product development

Many industries and their applications have safety-critical requirements drawn from process standards like ISO 14971 and ISO 26262. These requirements demand a higher level of visibility and traceability that can be achieved with the Jama-LDRA integration.

LDRA is heavily involved in the international standards body. They help lead the DO-178 standard in the aerospace market for safety in avionics. LDRA is also a significant contributor to the MISRA software coding standard and other standards like CERT. Their tool suite is ISO 9001:2008-certified as a quality management system and TÜV SÜD- and TÜV SAAR-certified.

The Jama-LDRA partnership benefits not only LDRA customers in the military and aerospace needing to comply with standards like DO-178B/C, but also one of the fastest-growing industries, and the one that keeps LDRA the busiest: the automotive industry and their need to comply with ISO 26262. The Jama-LDRA partnership also addresses applications for safety and security in the medical device industry (IEC 62304), rail (EN 50128), and industrial controls and energy (IEC 61508).

RELATED: Increasing Efficiency in Testing and Confidence in Safety Standard Compliance

Certification and code analysis

LDRA helps users achieve certification in standards like DO-178B/C, DO-331, ISO 26262, Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE), IEC 61508, and others. The LDRA tool suite lays out a set of objectives for the relevant process standard, along with corresponding artifact placeholders and sample template documents. This guiding project structure with built-in progress metrics gives the user an intuitive understanding of what is required to achieve certification and the day-to-day gains toward that goal.

A major key benefit to customers is LDRA’s ability to perform on target hardware testing or Run-For-Score (RFS). These customers have a very strict process for achieving certification wherein step-by-step testing is followed and results are logged and eye-witnessed.

LDRA also has its own proprietary code analysis engine. Starting with static code analysis, a debugging method that examines the source code before the program is run, LDRA generally finds potential coding flaws and security vulnerabilities prior to code compilation. Once the code has been compiled, testing can be further complemented by LDRA’s dynamic testing, structural coverage, and unit testing.

Build with certainty

The complementary capabilities and automation offered by Jama and LDRA deliver a powerful solution for the development and test verification of software systems in the product development lifecycle. Whatever software development approach your team chooses to employ, requirements- combined with Jama’s product lifecycle management capacities can help you deliver safe, compliant products on time and on budget.

To learn more about test management with Jama, take a deeper look at our solution and download the datasheet.

To learn more on the topic of test management, we’ve compiled a handy list of valuable resources for you!

Collaboration in product development helps improve quality, reduce risk and speed up development. For this reason, Jama Connect™ has context-based, actionable collaboration built into the platform. Reviews are a formal, effective collaboration method that guides teams in fulfilling regulatory requirements.

Our customers use these capabilities to collaborate with external stakeholders. For instance, Jama allows you to invite reviewers simply by email (Jama licenses include more than enough reviewer licenses for this purpose). This works extremely well in practice. In fact, one medical device developer, RBC Medical Innovations, was able to shed hundreds of team-member days during development to save $150,000 in cost savings per project.

Firewalls, Policies and Processes are Preventing Collaboration

One concern that many organizations have is IT security. In order to collaborate with external stakeholders, your Jama instance must be made accessible on the internet, or at least shared with collaborators via a secure connection (e.g., a VPN). Even if this is possible, decision-makers may have concerns — justified or not — about IT security.

Further, the other party (i.e., supplier or customer) must be willing to accept Jama as a collaboration platform. As such, the same concerns around security must be addressed on their end.

Lastly, even if all parties are interested in collaboration, one of them has an advantage: the one who has chosen Jama Connect as the collaboration platform. After all, that party not only gets collaboration, but also takes advantage of the complete Jama platform for end-to-end traceability, workflows and many more capabilities. The other party – the supplier or customer – can only collaborate on the content that has been made accessible.

The Alternative: Controlled Data Exchange via ReqIF

Data exchange between organizations is nothing new, and many organizations have collaborated for decades, typically by exchanging documents. While this approach technically works, it results in unstructured data that provides no traceability, no understanding of changes between versions and no easy way to provide structured feedback.

The automotive industry, traditionally working with hundreds of suppliers, has been a pioneer in this space. It’s not unusual to find tens of thousands of requirements in an automotive specification, so managing these requirements is a challenge. In response, the industry developed an international standard for the lossless exchange of requirements called Requirements Interchange Format (ReqIF). The standard was finalized in 2011 and has proven so popular that every requirements management tool today, including Jama Connect, supports it.

A requirements exchange with ReqIF has some similarities to the old (and dreaded) document exchange process: One party exports a ReqIF file and hands it to the other party. The transfer can happen via a portal upload, automated exchange or even as an email attachment.

But here’s where the similarities end: A ReqIF file contains structured requirements data consisting of individual requirements with visibility into structure, attributes, related elements and traces. It is loss-less: The data and structures that you see in your product development environment (like Jama Connect) stay completely intact.

ReqIF also supports incremental updates. If one party creates another version and exports a month later, you could import that version into your environment and the tool would show you clearly which elements, attributes and traces have changed. For instance, you could use suspect links to re-validate only those items that have changed.

Collaboration via ReqIF

ReqIF is commonly used to solicit feedback from a supplier. A producer could export the requirements for a supplier, including attributes for providing status feedback and comments. The supplier would then import the ReqIF file into the tool of their choice, where they could fill out the supplier attributes and send the resulting export back.

In addition, they could start integrating the imported requirements into their own development system. For example, they could establish traceability from the customer requirements through to design while keeping the process invisible to their customer.

Image Source: IREB Magazine

There are other use cases that ReqIF supports as well, but for all of them, the foundation is a controlled asynchronous exchange of structured requirements that keeps individual items, attributes and traces intact.

What about OSLC?

When talking about ReqIF, Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) is often mentioned as well. This is another standard, but one for connecting product development tools. It has some similarities to Jama’s REST API, in the sense that OSLC is also an API for connecting tools. While the REST API supports all activities of Jama Connect, OSLC only supports a small set of activities related to requirements. But since it’s standardized, many tools provide out-of-the-box adapters, including Jama Connect.

However, OSLC is not the answer to enabling cross-organizational collaboration between teams, suppliers and customers.

Bottom Line: How to Collaborate?

If you are using Jama Connect, the built-in collaboration capabilities are the most effective way to work together.

However, if you are working with people outside your organization, your customers and suppliers may not be able to collaborate using your Jama instance. In those cases, a ReqIF-based collaboration could be a great alternative.

Learn more about the benefits of upgrading your requirements management process with our paper, “Getting the Most from a Requirements Management Tool.”

One of the most amazing parts of product development is how every organization does things a little differently. And, within those companies, each team — whether it’s hardware, firmware, software or testing — has differing tools they’re utilizing from various parts of the development ecosystem that works best for their process.

At Jama, we think the last thing teams with tight timelines need is to feel constrained by platforms and tools. We love seeing their different methods and think competition amongst different solutions only makes quality stronger.

That’s one of the reasons Jama Software allows teams the flexibility to use a variety of tools through our expanding group of reliable partners, which can be partially facilitated by the OpsHub Integration Manager platform.

OpsHub helps teams make smarter decisions during development by making critical data available to stakeholders in their preferred systems. OpsHub also supports the integration of more than 50 Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), DevOps, IT Service Management (ITSM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems.

OpsHub helps tie all of these solutions and tools together in Jama to keep teams working quickly while maintaining traceability. If you’re not using OpsHub with Jama yet, here are five reasons to start.

Bidirectional Sync Capability With Conflict Resolution
Whenever there’s a conflict, OpsHub automatically detects and resolves it between the source system and target system. Unlike other solutions, OpsHub also gives you the ability to consider the behavior in case of conflict.

For instance, if a field is simultaneously being edited in two integrated systems, OpsHub allows you to consider the behavior. So maybe you give one system precedence over the other, or create a custom rule that governs such scenarios. This helps solve conflicts immediately before they snowball into catastrophic errors.

Support for More Than 50 Systems on Its Integration Platform
So many teams are involved in developing a complex product, and they’re all using different tools to help them do their jobs better. The tools a testing team uses are vastly different than what a software team works with. That’s why OpsHub supports more than 50 systems, which covers all the popular ALM, DevOps, CRM and ITSM systems.

Support for Large Number of Entities
Not only does OpsHub support more systems than any other solution, it also supports almost all the entities in each of these systems. That includes custom entities in any of the supported systems on the platform. This is critical because it allows teams to use the tools to their full capability, without worrying about the possibility of whether or not some of the entities are supported on the integration platform or not.

Database Class and Liability and Recovery
With some other solutions, if your integration summary goes down, you have to go back and manually ensure that the changes that happened during that downtime are synced and reconciled. And many times, reconciliation is not even a possibility. OpsHub ensures that all alterations are properly processed and guarantees that connected systems are consistent.

Rich Functionalities
From process customization to history preservation, multi-project support to cross-system traceability, OpsHub has a ton of awesome functionalities to dig into.

Get a deeper dive into how OpsHub integrates with Jama, including a narrated demo of how the two integrate, by checking out our webinar, “Streamlining Systems Development with OpsHub.”