Acme Automotive sets up a centralized Analysis Server and dedicates virtual directories to each of its 8 business groups. Each virtual directory is actually an Archiving and Versioning plug-in to the configuration management tool that the individual business chooses. The safety group has chosen to use the E-Matrix PDM system to control releases of their crash simulation codes.
Each of the safety group's engineers is outfitted with a local copy of the Analysis Server where they can develop their wrappers. Once they are happy with their code, they submit the files to E-Matrix where workflow notifications are generated. The workflow sends the files for peer-review and management approval. Once the required signatures are acquired, E-Matrix promotes the code to “released” state and the central Analysis Server now automatically publishes this code directly from the E-Matrix archive.
Updates to the code go through a similar workflow in the E-Matrix system and become available globally once E-Matrix promotes the code to the “released” state.
During a management review of a particular new code, it is decided that the code should be published only for internal use within the department. The appropriate E-Matrix access control rules are established before promoting the code to “released”. Once in released mode only the appropriate people see the new code because Analysis Server is passing login information to the E-Matrix plug-in.
A small group of developers have been tasked with creating wrappers for general use within the engineering department. There is a central Analysis Server used throughout the department. The developers will use CVS for configuration management of the wrapper files.
The developer group is outfitted with local Analysis Servers for development purposes. The developers simply use the normal CVS checkout, update, commit process to write and commit new code.
The engineers are automatically able to run the codes via a shared Analysis Server which is configured to pull from the CVS archive. Once an engineer finishes with a particular project, all the associated data files and models are archived in a centralized project directory.
The company is asked to develop a new product. Closer inspection reveals that this product is very similar to one developed over 3 years ago. The project and model files are pulled from the centralized storage area and loaded up. Since CVS is always non-destructive, ModelCenter is able to pull up the exact same set of codes which were used 3 years ago to develop the original product. A feasibility study is quickly run to determine if the new product has a reasonable risk factor.