METHOD FOR ENFORCING CHANGE POLICY BASED ON PROJECT STATE

• US 20080066049A1
• Filed: 09/10/2007
• Published: 03/13/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/12/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Opshub, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Opshub, Inc.
• Inventors: Jain, Sandeep, Knight, David
• Granted Patent: US 8,645,906 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/101
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/00 Computer-aided design [CAD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/70 Software maintenance or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/71 Version control security arrangements therefor G06F21/57; Configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A set of tools and other mechanisms automatically enforce software development change policies by providing a way to map physical source control system codelines to projects and by providing a way to maintain current project and codeline state information. The set of tools and other mechanisms also provide ways to define change management rules and policies, as well as, ways to evaluate and allow or deny each proposed change against the defined change policy.

Claims

1. A method for enforcing change policies in a software development environment comprising:

receiving at a source control system a request to make a change to a project;

before making said change, retrieving from said request metadata associated with said change;

evaluating said metadata against one or more policy rules defined for said project; and

if said metadata conforms to said one or more policy rules, storing said change in the source control system, else rejecting said change.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said metadata includes user authentication information.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said metadata includes information about the driver for said change.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the information includes at least one of:

a software defect, a feature id, or an enhancement id.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein evaluating said metadata comprises:

determining a status for said project; and

comparing said status to a state indicated by said one or more policy rules.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising maintaining a state of said project and a state of a codeline.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising maintaining a mapping between said project and said codeline.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said policy rule is user-defined.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein if the change is rejected displaying an error message to a user.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein evaluating said metadata includes performing a real-time evaluation of the one or more policy rules.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein said real-time evaluation is performed by a rule engine.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising recording whether the change was made to the project.

13. A computer-readable storage medium storing instructions for enforcing change policies in a software development environment, the instructions including instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of:

receiving at a source control system a request to make a change to a project;

before making said change, retrieving from said request metadata associated with said change;

evaluating said metadata against one or more policy rules defined for said project; and

if said metadata conforms to said one or more policy rules, storing said change in the source control system, else rejecting said change.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein said metadata includes user authentication information.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein said metadata includes information about the driver for said change.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15 wherein the information includes at least one of:

a software defect, a feature id, or an enhancement id.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein evaluating said metadata comprises:

determining a status for said project; and

comparing said status to a state indicated by said one or more policy rules.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, further comprising instructions for maintaining a state of said project and a state of a codeline.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, further comprising instructions for maintaining a mapping between said project and said codeline.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein said policy rule is user-defined.

21. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein if the change is rejected displaying an error message to a user.

22. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein evaluating said metadata includes performing a real-time evaluation of the one or more policy rules.

23. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 22, wherein said real-time evaluation is performed by a rule engine.

24. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, further comprising instructions for recording whether the change was made to the project.