Ease ALM With the Proper Tools (Continued)

Development
IBM WebSphere Studio Application Developer (IBM Corp.)
WebSphere Studio Application Developer is IBM's core application development environment for building and maintaining J2EE and Web services applications. Application Developer simplifies and optimizes J2EE application development with best practices, visual tools, templates, code generation, and a comprehensive development environment. Developers can build new applications or enable existing assets that are consistent with the WS-I Basic Profile 1.0, using open standards such as UDDI, SOAP, and WSDL.

Borland JBuilder (Borland Software Corp.)
JBuilder is a cross-platform environment for building enterprise Java applications. It can be used for EJB, Web client, XML, Web services, mobile, and database application development, offering two-way visual designers and rapid deployment to leading J2EE platform application servers. Productivity enhancements include UML code visualization, refactoring, code formatting, HotSwap debugging, enterprise unit testing, and support for multiple version control systems.

Visual Studio .NET (Microsoft Corp.)
Although Microsoft does not offer any single product for software lifecycle management, it does offer several products and technologies that together help organizations manage the development lifecycle. For example, Visual Studio .NET includes several new features geared toward software project management. In addition, Microsoft provides project management through Microsoft Project Central. SharePoint Services can provide communication and collaboration for the project team throughout the entire lifecycle. The Enterprise Architect edition of Visio can integrate with Visual Studio to provide object modeling capabilities. Visual SourceSafe can help manage code versions and code libraries, providing automated promotion capabilities. Visual Studio Analyzer can provide performance testing, and Application Center Test can test some types of Web-based applications. Together with the Windows Installer service, these technologies go a long way to help you master the complete application lifecycle. You can use them with some of the quality assurance and team support tools listed here to manage the entire lifecycle and reduce development and testing costs.

Testing
Compuware Application Reliability Solution (CARS) (Compuware Corp.)
CARS is a system based on three key elements: a methodology, a tool, and certified expertise. The first helps organizations manage risk through Compuware's QualityPoint methodology. This methodology is designed to integrate with existing quality assurance processes to help improve the quality of the development process. The second focuses on using the Application Quality Workbench to automate testing procedures for application development. The third relies on providing either training or expert help to improve your quality assurance processes. Compuware is well-known for the strength of its quality assurance support tools. However, CARS will still require the integration of additional tools for complete lifecycle management because it seems focused on the development phase only.

Optane Suite (Mercury Interactive)
Mercury Interactive offers Optane, a business technology optimization tool that supports the quality assurance process during software development. The suite includes tools for testing, performance tuning, and performance management. These tools help you identify the level of readiness of your applications, all from a business perspective. Though it doesn't support the entire lifecycle, Optane Suite can help you improve the quality of your development projects, reducing costs related to premature application releases. Optane operates with most development environments available today.

For more testing tools, also see our guide to automated testing tools in our recent Special Report on Testing and Performance.