Borland Connect Release 1.0 Update 1

These release notes contain product information that might not appear in other documentation. Read them in their entirety before you install the product.

Borland Connect is a tool used to synchronize item and relationship data between the StarTeam Server and other repositories or clients. Once data is synchronized into the StarTeam Server, all of the change management capabilities of StarTeam are available on the data, including versioning, branching, tracing, labeling and reporting.

If a desired repository is not currently available as a sample connector, Borland Connect also provides a Java API which enables customers to easily define their own connector for Borland Connect to use, creating a direct match for the data repositories they wish to integrate with StarTeam.

For more information on how to configure Borland Connect and write a custom connector, refer to the Installation Instructions below and to the Borland Community for the FAQ about How To Build a Connector presentation.

Note: This document may contain links to external web sites. Micro Focus cannot be responsible for the contents of the website or for the contents of any site to which it might link. Web sites by their nature can change very rapidly and although we try to keep our links up-to-date, we cannot guarantee that they will always work as expected.

More Information
To find more sample connectors and the How To and FAQ, please visit our community at, http://community.microfocus.com/borland/.

System Requirements

This section contains system requirements that you need in order to use Borland Connect.

Software

StarTeam Server 14.0 Update 1. Refer to the StarTeam Server Release Notes.

Operating Systems

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (32- and 64-bit).
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012.

Hardware

• Minimum 32-bit, quad-core systems with 4-8GB of memory.
• Recommended 64-bit, quad-core systems with 8-16GB of memory.

What's New

SCM API

Support has been added to Borland Connect to support the synchronization of files and folders from a 3rd party SCM tool. Samples have been provided in the installation folder for a Subversion connector and a new API has been added to support the creation of a custom SCM connector. See the Borland Connect  documentation and community site for further details.

Best Practices

SCM Connector

The most common use case for using an SCM connector is to manage your Release and Integration branches in StarTeam while the development team(s) use a different SCM tool for their sandbox branches.

This model allows each development team to work with their sandbox tooling of choice while still maintaining an enterprise class single source for Release and Change Management in StarTeam.

To setup the SCM Connector:

1. Choose the appropriate SCM connector and follow the Readme and Connnect.xml.sample files to set it up.
2. Navigate to the Release or Integration view in the StarTeam Cross-Platform Client and use the Copy URL to Clipboard option on the folder that you want to synchronize. The URL should be placed into the of the Connect.xml project map, corresponding to the correct Source Project name.
3. Perform a complete file checkout from the StarTeam Release view. These will be the files used to establish the initial branch in the other SCM tool.
4. Open the other SCM tool and create a new branch (Integration branch) adding the complete hierarchy of folders and files checked out from the StarTeam Release view.
5. Copy the URL (or unique identifier) to the root folder of the newly created Integration branch in the other SCM tool. This URL should be placed into the of the Conneect.xml project map, corresponding to the correct target Project name.
6. Start Borland Connect with the SCM settings completed.
7. Create child branches from the Integration branch in the other SCM tool for the development team to work in. These can be shared branches, individual branches, feature braches or defect braches. The team is free to work in these branches in any way that matches your best practices.
8. When code changes are completed in the sandbox and merged back into the Integration branch in the other SCM tool, Borland Connect will automatically synchronize the changes into the Release view of StarTeam to be tracked and managed along with other contributing team changes. If any changes are made in the Release view directly in the StarTeam UI or by other contributing teams, then Borland Connect will synchronize those changes back into the Integration view to be merged into the team sand boxes.

Installation

Borland Connect provides an installer for both 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems. After completing the installation wizard, Borland Connect will be installed and ready to configure (see Configuring Borland Connect).

The installer will add a Start Borland Connect option to the Microsoft Windows Start menu and provide a batch file for creating a Microsoft Windows Service (see Running as a Service).

Either method can be used to run Borland Connect after setting the configuration options.

Configuring Borland Connect

The following contains configuration information for Borland Connect. After the installation of Borland Connect, there will be two sample files in the root install direction: Connect.xml.sample and local.properties.sample.

To configure Borland Connect:

1. Open local.properties.sampleand specify the following options:
   • url - Optional value specifying the StarTeam url to a Connect.xml file checked into the StarFlow Extensions project. By default, the Connect.xml file in the root install directory will be used when the url is not specified.
   • user_directory- Local machine path where Borland Connect will write log and configuration files. The user logged into the machine and running Borland Connect must have the appropriate rights to write files in this location.
   • Debug - Optional value to specify the level of logging (HIGH, MEDIUM or LOW). By default, Borland Connect will log warning and errors only.

   Save these settings in a file name local.properties in the root install directory.

2. Open the Connect.xml.sample file and update the DataSource and Synchronization information to specify the StarTeam connection information and connector you wish to use with Borland Connect. You can either use one of the sample connectors provided on the Borland community or build a custom connector. For instructions on how to build a custom connector, see How to Build a Connector on the Borland Community. After you've updated the DataSource and Synchronization information to match the desired configuration, save the file as Connect.xml in the root install directory.
3. Identify the required connector library files for the DataSource specified in Connect.xml and place the required files into the root install directory. Each of the sample connectors comes with a readme which specifies the required libraries for running the connector in Borland Connect. At a minimum, the required libraries must contain the connector class specified in the Connect.xml as well as any other library dependencies for running the connector.
4. Once the above configuration files have been saved into the root install directory, run startconnect.bat to start Borland Connect.

Running as a Service

Use the following procedures to run Borland Connect as a service.

Note: When running as a service be sure that the service account has the rights to create files in the directory specified by the user_directory parameter in the local.properties file.

1. If you not followed the procedures in Configuring Borland Connect, perform that task first.
2. Execute the BorlandConnectService.bat file in the root installation directory. This will create the service named BorlandConnect using the local.properties file in that same directory. The service startup type is set to Automatic so that it starts on each reboot.
3. To start the service, you must open the Windows Services dialog and execute Start from the context menu on the service.

Note: You can remove the service by executing the uninstall-service.bat file in the installation directory.

Known Issues

Please refer to the ReadMe file included with each sample connector for information on any known issues or limitations with the provided connector functionality. Additionally, review the following:

• Borland Connect 1.0 provides synchronization of StarTeam items to and from the root view of Projects specified in the ProjectMap section of the Connect.xml file. Items in child Views of the Project will not be synchronized.
• When a Message Broker is available, Borland Connect 1.0 will use MPX to communicate with the StarTeam Server. Using MPX will provide optimal performance with Borland Connect 1.0 and is
  strongly recommended.
• The linkMap property value specified in the configuration file should not be manually edited by users. Adding or changing the linkMap value of an item may result in duplicate synchronized items from Borland Connect. When possible, the linkMap value should be hidden from users to avoid any
  unwanted changes in value.

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