Frequently Asked Questions
If you don't see an answer to a question you think should be listed on this page, please let us know at wiki@sourceiq.com.
What is SourceIQ?
SourceIQ Enterprise Server is an integrated view of software project across the enterprise and across global teams, giving organizations the metrics and analytics they need to achieve development governance.
By automatically deriving software metrics from ALM infrastructures, SourceIQ delivers analytics and reports to software managers, executives and teams in four key areas:
- code quality
- code volume and volatility
- team contribution
- compliance / governance
Organizations apply this information to:
- assess compliance with engineering standards
- reduce risk and cost in their SDLC
- drive innovation
With which ALM products does SourceIQ integrate?
SourceIQ integrates with the leading commercial and open source version control systems used by software development teams:
- Commercial version control systems
- Open source version control systems
SourceIQ also integrates with issue- and defect-tracking systems, giving seamless traceability from analytic results derived from version control back to the originating tickets that govern the development activities:
On what platforms does SourceIQ run?
SourceIQ is composed of server and end-user components.
The server components are 100% Pure Java. They run in a J2EE application server, nominally JBoss, which is supported on virtually every modern operating system. The server uses a Microsoft SQL Server database, which requires that the database portion of the server be hosted on a Windows operating system.
If the server installation requires any specific 3rd-party tools to integrate with the ALM infrastructure, those considerations may affect available platforms. For example, if SourceIQ is integrated with Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, then a Windows platform is called for due to the limitation that the Visual SourceSafe client is available only on Windows. SourceIQ's server uses a service oriented architecture for maximum flexibility in scaling from an individual project team to a global enterprise. A typical small- to mid-scale server installation would be a single Windows platform, running Windows Server 2000 or more recent. A large-scale installation might use Solaris 10 for JBoss and the SourceIQ server components, with the SQL Server database hosted on Windows. A very large-scale installation might co-locate multiple physical instances of SourceIQ in various geographic realms to create a single virtual SourceIQ model for the entire global enterprise.
The end-user components are also 100% Pure Java, and run on any modern operating system using Java v1.4.2 or more recent. The end-user GUI uses Java Web Start to deliver full application functionality with the ease of delivering an applet.
What are conduits?
A conduit implements the translation from a version control system's native capabilities to the generalized representation given in SourceIQ. For example, the IBM Rational ClearCase conduit derives artifacts and their associated meta-information from a ClearCase VOB. A single SourceIQ installation can support many conduits, assessing the change process for both homogenous and heterogenous populations of version control repositories across the enterprise.
From a user perspective, a conduit typically encapsulates a single repository of code, sometimes also known as a silo of code.
What are snap-ins?
Snap-ins are the architectural construct used by the SourceIQ server to perform assessments against the artifacts that are accessed by conduits.