IBM Rational Unified Process - History

History

The Rational Unified Process (RUP) is a software process product, originally developed by Rational Software, which was acquired by IBM in February 2003. The product includes a hyper linked knowledge base with sample artifacts and detailed descriptions for many different types of activities. RUP is included in the IBM Rational Method Composer (RM C) product which allows customization of the process. Combining the experience base of companies led to the articulation of six best practices for modern software engineering:

1. Develop iteratively, with risk as the primary iteration driver
2. Manage requirements
3. Employ a component-based architecture
4. Model software visually
5. Continuously verify quality
6. Control changes

These best practices both drove the development of Rational's products, and were used by Rational's field teams to help customers improve the quality and predictability of their software development efforts. To make this knowledge more accessible, Philippe Kruchten, a Rational techrep, was tasked with the assembly of an explicit process framework for modern software engineering. This effort employed the HTML-based process delivery mechanism developed by Objectory. The resulting "Rational Unified Process" (RUP) completed a strategic tripod for Rational:

• a tailorable process that guided development
• tools that automated the application of that process
• services that accelerated adoption of both the process and the tools.

RUP was created in 1996 when Rational acquired the Objectory Process that had been written by Ivar Jacobson.

The original version incorporated mostly content from Jim Rumbaugh's Object Modeling Technology (OMT) approach to modeling, Grady Booch's Booch approach and UML 1.0.

In 1997, Requirements and Test discipline were added to the approach.

In 1998, they added two new disciplines: business modeling, much of which had already been in the Objectory Process and a Configuration and Change Management discipline. They also added more techniques including performance testing, UI Design, data engineering and updated RUP to UML 1.1.

In 1999, they added a Project Management discipline and added techniques for real time software development. They also updated RUP to UML 1.3

From 2000 on, most of the modifications were around adding techniques, adding "tool mentors" with step by step guides to using Rational tools and in automating the customization of RUP in a way that would allow customers to customize their version, but still incorporate improvements in subsequent releases from Rational.