What's New in the Rational Unified Process
Main Description

The new features and changes in the Rational Unified Process® (RUP®) are described below.

From the Rational Unified Process 7.0 to 7.0.1

This release includes several editorial updates and other minor corrections.

From the Rational Unified Process 2003.06.15 to 7.0

This major release includes the following changes:

  • Terminology changes and concepts from the Unified Method Architecture as proposed for the OMG standard Software Process Engineering Metamodel (SPEM) version 2.0.
  • Separation of UMA concepts  introduction into a base plugin for RUP called Base Concepts.
  • Major update of Best Practices. These practices have been recast into Key Principles for Business-Driven Development.
  • New delivery processes.
  • New look and feel for RUP pages and tree browser.
  • Updated environment discipline to be consistent with the new tooling.  Development case content moved to its own method package.
  • Addition of new task, Develop Supplementary Specifications.
  • New content for constructing systems of system, including use-case flowdown, operation analysis, and operation design.

From the Rational Unified Process 2003.06.01 to 2003.06.15

This service release includes the following changes:

  • Significantly increased compliance with accessibility standards
  • Updates to reflect UML 2.0 notation and terminology
    • Collaboration Diagram was renamed Communication Diagram
    • Implement Dependency was renamed Manifest Dependency
    • Component diagrams were updated with new component shape
    • Added Concept: Structured Class
    • Added comments about and example of sequence diagram new capabilities
    • Added comments about and examples of activity diagram new capabilities
    • Design Subsystems are now represented as components

From the Rational Unified Process 2003.06.00 to 2003.06.01

This is a service release including mostly minor changes. These include:

  • Mandatory inputs have been defined for business modeling activities, and updated for other activities
  • Activity "Deploy the Product" has been removed
  • Updated ClearCase and ClearQuest tool mentors
  • New model structuring guidelines for Rational XDE Developer .NET Edition
  • New guideline for cost estimation using the Wide-Band Delphi technique
  • Updated formatting of artifact and activity pages

From the Rational Unified Process 2002.05.00 to 2003.06.00

General Changes

  • Improved User-Configuration of the Process with RUP Builder
    • The process has been refactored across all disciplines to create more than 60 selectable components, with improved ability to mix and match both plug-ins and components.
    • Small, medium, and large project configuration templates provide a starting point for process configuration.
    • Formal and Informal Resources plug-ins allows flexibility in "level of ceremony".
    • Contextual views into RUP are provided, such as the "developer" role view, and "getting started" view.
    • Improved generation of graphics and tables that reflect the selected process configuration.
  • Personal Process View or My RUP Personalization
    • Each RUP user can create his/her own personalized view into RUP.
    • Users can add links to external and internal resources.
  • Tool Integration
    • New and Updated Tool Mentors:
      • New tool mentors for Rational XDE, RUP Builder, and Rational Process Workbench.
      • New tool mentors for using the RUP Web site, including searching, extended help and navigation.
    • Extended Help launches a view in RUP.
    • Search engine provides seamless search across RUP and RDN, and other new options.
  • Content
    • Guidelines, concepts, white papers, and checklists can now be attached to any process element, and so are now associated to the process elements where they are most relevant. The separate concept of a "Work Guideline" is gone.
  • Look and Feel
    • The Web site's navigation and layout has been upgraded to align with other Rational Web products.

Specific Changes and Additions to Content

  • Overview
    • New "Getting Started" page provides answers to commonly asked questions for those new to RUP, and is presented along with relevant content as part of a specific process view in the tree browser.
      Note: The "Getting Started" view can be disabled by either a) for the entire project team, republishing the RUP Web site from RUP Builder and excluding the "Getting Started" process view or b) for the individual practitioner, using the "Tree Sets" feature of the tree browser to display a single process view of your choice.
  • RUP Lifecycle
    • Example Iteration Workflows provide a phase-based and time-based view into the process.
  • Disciplines
    • Concepts pages are no longer all grouped under each discipline, but are now attached to the most relevant process element. Only those concepts and guidelines needed to understand the discipline as a whole are directly attached to the discipline.
    • All technical reviewer roles, such as Business Model reviewer and Design Reviewer, have been replaced by a single Technical Reviewer role, which now performs all technical review activities across the disciplines.
  • Business Modeling Discipline
    • New support for modeling business rules, goals, and events.
    • Artifact: Business Object Model has been renamed to Business Analysis Model.
  • Requirements Discipline
    • A generic "Software Requirement" has been added in support of more flexible process configuration by the project team.
    • The guidance on storyboarding has been generalized by removing the dependency on use cases.
      (See Artifact: Storyboard).
    • User Interface Design has been moved to the Analysis and Design Discipline.
    • Artifact: User-Experience Storyboard has been added to the separate User Experience Plug-In to address user-experience design concerns.
  • Analysis and Design Discipline
    • Data Modeling content has been upgraded to cover conceptual, logical, and physical database modeling.
    • User Interface Design content has been moved from the Requirements Discipline and upgraded to reflect industry practices, including the new artifact Navigation Map.
  • Implementation Discipline
    • Artifact: Component has been replaced with Artifact: Implementation Element.
    • Improved guidance on component-based development and round-trip engineering.
    • New guidance on developer testing, debugging, and analysis of run-time behavior.
  • Test Discipline
    • Separate templates for Master and Iteration Test Plans.
    • New Test Strategy artifact.
  • Environment Discipline
    • Guidance on defining the organizational process environment has been broken out into a separate process packaged with RPW , leaving the RUP to focus on Project Environment only.
    • Improved guidance for implementing a process for a project, supported by the RUP tooling for customization and configuration of process.
    • New Artifact : Development Process and Activity: Tailor the process for the project, to describe the project-specific process.
    • All "Guidelines" type artifacts, such as "Design Guidelines" and "Business Modeling Guidelines", have been replaced by a single more generic artifact, "Project-Specific Guidelines".
  • Project Management Discipline
    • New Reviewer and Review Coordinator roles were added to better describe the review process.

From the Rational Unified Process 2001A.04.00 to 2002.05.00

Release 2002.05.00 is the successor to release 2001A.04.00. It adds or changes content in the following topic areas:

  • All RUP process variants are no longer installable from the Rational Suite installer. They can now be installed using RUP Builder, shipped with this release of RUP.
  • RUP Builder has been added:
    • Real-time specific content is componentized into its own plug-in, separately installable.
    • Microsoft variant is componentized into its own plug-in, separately installable.
    • The IBM variant is componentized into its own plug-in, separately installable.
  • Restructure and Extension of Test Discipline:
    • Changes
      • Complete restructure of the Test Discipline Workflow and associated Workflow Details
      • Removed Existing Workflow Details and replaced with Iteration Goal focused work elements.
      • Rename and refactoring of existing Activities
      • Restructure of existing Test roles
      • Tester role now responsible for Test Implementation and Execution
      • Overloaded Test Designer role activities and artifacts distributed to other roles
      • Recast the following Activities
        • Plan Test-now multiple activities across Role
        • Design Test-now multiple activities across Role
        • Execute Test-replaced by Execute Test Suite
        • Evaluate Test-now multiple activities across Role
    • Additions
      • Introduced the following Roles
        • Test Manager
        • Test Analyst
      • Introduced the following Workflow Details
        • Define Evaluation Mission
        • Verify Test Approach
        • Test and Evaluate
        • Achieve Acceptable Mission
        • Improve Test Assets
      • Introduced the following Activities
        • Agree Mission
        • Identify Test Motivators
        • Obtain Testability Commitment
        • Assess and Advocate Quality
        • Assess and Improve Test Effort
        • Identify Targets of Test
        • Identify Test Ideas
        • Define Test Details
        • Define Assessment and Traceability Needs
        • Determine Test Results
        • Define Test Approach
        • Define Test Environment Configurations
        • Identify Testability Mechanisms
        • Define Testability Elements
        • Implement Test Suite
        • Execute Test Suite
        • Analyze Execution Failure
      • Introduced the following Artifacts
        • Test Automation Architecture
        • Test Data
        • Test Environment Configuration
        • Test-Ideas List
        • Test Interface Specification
        • Test Suite
        • Test Log
      • Introduced improved Developer Testing Guidance
        • Test-First Design
        • various concepts and guidelines focused on Testing for Developers
    • Deletions
      • Removed the following Artifacts
        • Test Model
        • Test Procedure
        • Test Package
        • Test Subsystem
  • Added new Roadmap: Using Agile Practices with RUP.
  • Enhanced Key Concepts.
  • Improved navigation buttons for the Disciplines
  • Added new white paper "Content Management Defined".
  • Added new sample configuration for Small Project.
  • Added new tool mentors:
    • Tool Mentor: Profiling Memory Usage in Managed Code using Rational Purify and Rational Purify® Plus (Windows)
    • Tool Mentor: Comparing Baselines using Rational ClearCase®
    • Tool Mentor: Finding Actors and Use Cases Using Rational Rose RealTime®
    • Tool Mentor: Detailing a Use Case Using Rational Rose RealTime®
    • Tool Mentor: Structuring the Use-Case Model Using Rational Rose RealTime®
    • Tool Mentor: Creating Use-Case Realizations Using Rational Rose RealTime®
    • Tool Mentor: Managing Classes Using Rational Rose RealTime®
    • Tool Mentor: Managing Collaboration Diagrams Using Rational Rose RealTime®
    • Tool Mentor: Managing the Design Model Using Rational Rose RealTime®
    • Tool Mentor: Managing Sequence Diagrams Using Rational Rose RealTime®

From the Rational Unified Process 2001.03.00 to 2001A.04.00

Release 2001A.04.00 is the successor to release 2001.03.00. It adds or changes content in the following topic areas:

  • New tool mentors created for new products:
    • Rational Rose RealTime Tool Mentors
      • Setting Up Version Control using Rational Rose RealTime with Rational ClearCase
      • Capturing a Concurrency Architecture using Rational Rose RealTime
      • Designing with Active Objects in Rational Rose RealTime
    • Rational ProjectConsole Tool Mentors
      • Browsing Project Artifacts Using Rational ProjectConsole
      • Creating a Static or Portable Copy of your Rational ProjectConsole Web Site Using Rational ProjectConsole
      • Displaying Artifacts Related to Specific Objects on a Diagram Using Rational ProjectConsole
      • Visiting Source Data Using Rational ProjectConsole
    • Rational QualityArchitect Tool Mentors
      • Implementing an Automated Component Test using Rational QualityArchitect
  • New tool mentors for TestManager:
    • Executing a Test Suite Using Rational TestManager
    • Designing an Automated Test Suite Using Rational TestManager
  • "Core Workflow" has been changed to "Discipline" throughout.
  • Tree browser changes:
    • The "Rational Unified Process" entry under Tool Mentors have been moved to "Process Engineer Toolkit"
    • The Report Overview, Guidelines Overview, Examples Overview and Stereotypes Overview items have been moved from Artifact to Overview.
  • Addition of hyperlinked Tree Path at the top of each page to indicate location in RUP tree browser
  • Upgraded graphics on buttons and icons.
  • Addition of new roadmap for Usability Engineering.
  • Incorporated new example Organization Web and example Project Web, based on the previous Wylie College artifact example set.
  • C-Sports example artifacts are now installed directly, instead of requiring a separate "unzip" installation.
  • The following new white papers have been added:
    • RUP/XP Guidelines: Pair Programming
    • RUP/XP Guidelines: Test-first Design and Refactoring
    • A Comparison of RUP and XP
    • The Rational Unified Process - An Enabler for Higher Process Maturity

From the Rational Unified Process 2000 to 2001.03.00

Release 2001.03.00 is the successor to release 2000. It adds or changes content in the following topic areas:

  • A new workflow detail - Perform Architectural Synthesis - has been added to Analysis and Design, for use during the Inception phase for construction of an Architectural Proof-of-Concept, to help with technology selection, and show that the envisioned system is feasible.
  • The role Architect has been renamed Software Architect, to distinguish that role from other architectural roles, for example, System Architect.
  • Guidelines for the use of Microsoft® Windows DNA technology have been added to the Development Component Solutions roadmaps.
  • Updated examples
  • Tailoring guidance provided for all artifacts
  • Updated Requirements Management Plan template
  • Upgraded Requirements Management activities - term "traceability item" is used to generalize to artifact beyond just "requirement types"
  • Guidance on  how to manage requirements has been updated, including new Guidelines: Requirements Management Plan
  • new Small Project roadmap, Tailoring Concepts, Small Project Development Case example, and Core Workflow Essentials
  • Activity: Perform Configuration Audits has been reworked and enhanced
  • Staffing sections have been added to those roles without one
  • Best Practice: Visual Modeling has been fleshed out with more details
  • The word "worker" has been changed to "role" for clearer understanding of the different roles a team member might perform.
  • New tool mentors created for existing products:
    • Tool Mentor: Creating Multiple Sites Using Rational ClearCase
    • Tool Mentor: Evaluating Code Coverage Using Rational PureCoverage (UNIX)
    • Tool Mentor: Detecting Run-Time Errors Using Rational Purify (UNIX)
    • Tool Mentor: Finding Performance Bottlenecks Using Rational Quantify (UNIX)
    • Tool Mentor: Archiving Requirements Using Rational RequisitePro
    • Tool Mentor: Setting Up Rational Rose for a Project
  • New tool mentors created for new products:
    • Rational Process Workbench Tool Mentors
      • Setting Up and Configuring Rational Process Workbench Tool
      • Setting Up and Managing Rational Process Workbench Workspace
      • Developing Process Models
      • Managing Process Content
      • Defining a Custom Process
      • Publish a Process

From the Rational Unified Process 5.5 to 2000

Release 2000 is the successor to release 5.5. It adds or changes content in the following topic areas:

  • Business Modeling Workflow
    • Four new concepts pages have been added to clarify the role of business modeling in the context of e-business development.
    • The page Concepts: Activity Based Costing outlines how the technique can be applied within the RUP.
    • The page Concepts: Business Architecture explains our definition of what it means to architect a business.
    • The page Concepts: Business Patterns gives some examples of useful patterns to apply in business modeling.
    • The page Concepts: e-business Development gives our definition of the term.
    • Three new workflow details have been added to the workflow diagram: "assess business status", "describe current business", and "explore process automation".
    • Workflow detail: Assess Business Status describes how you assess the status of the organization in which the eventual system is to be deployed (the target organization).
    • Workflow detail: Describe Current Business talks about how you work to describe the current organization's processes and structure in order to better understand needs for improvement.
    • Workflow detail: Explore Process Automation talks about how you determine what can and should be automated of the business processes, how you understand how any existing systems (legacy) should fit into the organization, and how you derive system requirements from your business models.
    • Five new artifacts have been added: "target-organization assessment", "business vision", "business glossary", "business rules", and "business architecture document".
    • Artifact: Target-Organization Assessment describes the current status of the organization in which the system is to be deployed. The description is in terms of current processes, tools, peoples' competencies, peoples' attitude, customers, competitors, technical trends, problems and improvement areas.
    • Artifact: Business Vision is a general vision of the core project's requirements, and provides the contractual basis for the more detailed technical requirements.
    • Artifact: Business Glossary defines important terms used in the business engineering portion of the project.
    • Artifact: Business Rules is a document capturing declarations of policy or conditions that must be satisfied.
    • Artifact: Business Architecture Document provides a comprehensive architectural overview of the system, using a number of different architectural views to depict different aspects of the system.
  • Requirements Workflow
    • The page Concepts: User-Centered Design explains how to better meet user needs and improve user acceptance by focusing on the goals and need of the user when designing the user interface.
    • The Artifact: Stakeholder Requests and Workflow Detail: Understanding Stakeholder Needs were improved to include more focus on collecting user and stakeholder profiles.
    • Expanded User Profile section in the Vision Document.
    • The Guidelines: Software Requirement Specification was expanded to include material from IGS Component Broker Engagement Methodology on Defining Non-Functional Requirements.
  • Analysis & Design Workflow
    • New artifacts:
      • Reference Architecture
      • Deployment Model
    • Modified activity:
      • Architectural Analysis to reflect the development of an architectural overview, selection of a reference architecture and the development of a deployment model.
    • Software Architecture Document guidelines to describe the identification of architecturally significant change cases
    • A new concepts page has been added to describe Web Architecture Patterns. This is taken from the book "Building Web Applications with UML", with the kind permission of the author Jim Conallen and the publisher Addison-Wesley.
  • Environment Workflow
    • There is a new entry in the Getting Started page, called Implementing the Process. This page and the pages it links to, will describe how you implement the RUP in different situations. For example, how to implement the RUP in a development organization; how to implement the RUP in a development project.
    • The following artifacts has been added:
      • Tool Guidelines
    • The following Guidelines containing new information on how to use artifacts have been added:
      • Guidelines: Classifying Artifacts
      • Guidelines: Review Levels
    • The following Concepts have been added with valuable information on how to implement process and tools:
      • Concepts: Environment Practices
      • Concepts: Implementing a Process in a Project
      • Concept: Mentoring
      • Concepts: Pilot Project
    • Concepts: Implementing a process in an Organization has been revised.
    • The role "Toolsmith" has been renamed "Tool Specialist" The new name better reflects its responsibilities, toolsmithing is just one of several responsibilities.
    • Activity: Set Up Tools, Activity: Develop Tool Guidelines and Activity: Verify Tool Configuration and Installation  have been added to the Tool Specialist.
    • Several tool mentors that describe how to set up tools (one tool mentor for each Rational Tool) has been added. They are all referenced from the new Activity: Set Up Tools.
    • The four (4) workflow details in the Environment workflow have been updated with the new activities.
    • The Development Case HTML template has been completely revised.
  • Test Workflow
    • Artifact sets now reflect an artifact set for Test.
    • Two new test artifacts:
      • Test Results - the data captured during the execution of test which is used as input for the Evaluation of Test and to calculate the key measures of test.
      • Test Evaluation Summary (formerly a report) - created during the Evaluation of Test, this artifact organizes and presents the test results and key measures of test for review and assessment, and contains recommendations for future test efforts.
    • The Workflow Details for Execute Test and Evaluate Test have been revised to reflect these two new artifacts.
    • The Guidelines for Test Cases contains new information and guidelines for deriving test cases from use cases.
    • Modified/Clarified the following test activities:
      • Execute Test - revised this activity to focus the effort on setting-up and execution of test, including recovering from halted or incomplete test execution.
      • Evaluate Test - revised to include the analysis of the test results, logging change requests, and generating the Test Evaluation Summary.
  • Deployment Workflow
    • This workflow has been completely re-worked and has a new introduction, workflow activity diagrams and workflow details
    • New Activity Diagram
      • Deployment Workflow Activity Diagram
    • New Artifacts:
      • Bill of Materials
      • Product Artwork
      • Deployment Unit
      • Product
    • New Roles:
      • Graphic Artist
    • New Activities:
      • Define Bill of Materials
      • Manage Acceptance Test
      • Release to Manufacturing
      • Verify Manufactured Product
      • Provide Access to Download Site
      • Create Product Artwork
  • Configuration and Change Management Workflow
    • The Configuration Management section was updated to align with Unified Change Management concepts in the following areas.
    • New Activity
      • Project Repository
      • Workspace
    • Changes to Activities:
      • Establish CM Policies
      • Set Up CM Environment
      • Create Integration Workspace
      • Create Development Workspace
      • Make Changes
      • Deliver Changes
      • Update Workspace
      • Create Baselines
      • Promote Baselines
      • Create Deployment Unit
    • New Tool Mentors:
      • Setting Up the Implementation Model with UCM
      • Working on UCM Activities
      • Delivering Your Work using Rational ClearCase
      • Updating Your Project Work Area using Rational ClearCase
      • Linking Configuration Management and Change Request Management
    • New Concepts:
      • Unified Change Management
  • Project Management Workflow
    • The deployment related activities are now owned by the Deployment Manager role. The Project Manager role has been made responsible for the development of the Quality Assurance Plan artifact.
  • Implementation Workflow
    • A new artifact, Build, has been added.
    • The role of System Integrator has been renamed Integrator, and this new role assumes the integration responsibilities that previously belonged to the Implementer.
    • The purpose of the artifact Implementation Subsystem has been clarified, and its relationship to the artifact Design Subsystem explained.
  • Under the section on Phases, we have added a description of the Transition phase, and a sample iteration plan for the Transition phase. For each of the phases, we have provided, courtesy of Ensemble Systems Inc, a more detailed Microsoft® Project® template which goes to the activity level.
  • Artifact sets have been reorganized:
    • There is now one artifact set for each core workflow
    • An artifact is considered to "belong to" the core workflow in which it is primarily developed
  • Added new road maps:
    • Developing e-business Solutions: A road map has been added that explains how to use the RUP for e-business development.
  • Re-organization and renaming of  Iteration Workflows to Phases.
  • Added Analyst Studio Tool Mentor section.
  • Added new guideline, Guideline: Review Levels.
  • Improvement in the performance of the tree browser.
  • Added HTML Templates for artifacts that currently have Microsoft® Word® and Adobe® FrameMaker® templates. Included pointers into the HTML template from the artifact pages and removed the embedded Annotated Outlines.
  • All Word Templates have been compressed into a compressed file.
  • Added Collegiate Sports Paging System example to demonstrate e-business application.
  • All examples are now compressed into a compressed file.
  • Now supports foreign languages and JDK1.1:
    • Added instruction for translating the Rational Unified Process to other foreign languages.

From the Rational Unified Process 5.1.1 to 5.5

Release 5.5 is the successor to release 5.1.1. It adds or changes content in the following topic areas:

  • Improved 'Getting Started' content, including automatic display of getting started topics on product start-up. The automatic start-up may be disabled at the user's discretion. This feature includes and subsumes the 'Guided Tour' concept which appeared in version 5.0. The 'old' Guided Tour is now expanded under the 'Process Roles' link on the 'Getting Started' window.
  • Simplification of the tree browser.
  • Improved process Overview.
  • Re-designed core workflows, now using Workflow Detail Overviews to express workflows. The workflows are expressed as activity diagrams using workflow details to provide an easier to understand picture of how the work on the project is done.
  • Expanded 'Workflow Details'; these have now become the focal point for the expression of workflows in the process.
  • Improved process configuration and implementation content in the 'Environment Workflow'.
  • Improved cross-referencing, to improve product usability. Especially noteworthy are the links between Artifacts and Activities (see Artifact: Software Architecture Document for an example).
  • Expanded 'Project Management Workflow' content, including metrics and estimation, project planning and project control.
  • Removal of Rational SoDA and Rational Rose model templates from the RUP. These templates are now provided with their respective Rational Software products and are automatically installed when those products are installed. Use of these template is still described in appropriate RUP Tool Mentors.
  • Java Programming Guidelines have been added.
  • Added the concept of Roadmaps, which describes how the process can be tailored to a particular style or type of software development. There are two Roadmaps in this release: one for component-based development, and one expressing how a focus on quality manifests itself throughout the lifecycle. We expect more to be included in future releases.
  • Two new white papers: one covering strategies for traceability, and another describing modeling Web applications with UML.
  • Added Change Request Management process information in Configuration and Change Management workflow.
  • Updated Vision template to include more and proper emphasis on stakeholders/user and needs/requests.
  • New artifacts:
    • Software Requirements Specification in the Requirements workflow; templates are included for use both with and without use-case modeling.
    • Requirements Management Plan for setting up project requirement artifacts.
  • Updated document templates to include consistent formats styles, and informational guidance.
  • FrameMaker templates now available from the RUP Resource Center.
  • Expanded links and cross-references:
    • Between artifacts and the activities that use, produce or modify them
    • Between activities and the workflow details that organize them


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