International Business Machines Corporation

Nicholas D J Crossley

Schuyler Bruce Matthews

Darcy L Wiborg Weber

Troy R Dugger

David J Honey

Samuel Sung-Ok Lee

Geoffrey M Clemm

Martin Paul Nally

Daniel D J Leroux

From a present version of a first artifact which is mutable, an artifact baseline corresponding to the present version of the first artifact can be created. Responsive to creating the artifact baseline, the present version of the first artifact can be made immutable. Present versions of children artifacts of the present version of the first artifact which are mutable also can be made immutable. Responsive to identifying a change to the present version of the first artifact, a new version of the first artifact can be automatically created, wherein the new version of the first artifact is mutable.

Versioning for configurations of reusable artifacts

Arrangements described herein relate to managing reusable artifacts. Responsive to receiving a request to create a placeholder for a reusable artifact representing a reusable unit, the placeholder for an appropriate version of the reusable artifact is created within a container and a first parameter identifying the reusable artifact is assigned to an artifact property of the placeholder. Responsive to receiving a request to pin a particular version of the reusable artifact to the placeholder, a version property of the placeholder can be updated to set the version, wherein the request to pin the particular version of the reusable artifact to the placeholder is implemented by assigning a value to a parameter in the placeholder or adding a pin property into the placeholder. The particular version can be maintained as the set version of the reusable artifact regardless of whether new artifact versions are created for the reusable artifact.

Managing reusable artifacts using placeholders

Arrangements described herein relate to versioning configurations of reusable artifacts. An artifact baseline corresponding to the present version of a first artifact can be created. Responsive to creating that artifact baseline, the present version of the first artifact, and present versions of children artifacts of the present version of the first artifact, are made immutable. Responsive to identifying a change to the present version of the first artifact, a new version of the first artifact can be automatically created, wherein the new version of the first artifact is mutable.

Arrangements described herein relate to managing reusable artifacts. Responsive to receiving a request to create a placeholder for a reusable artifact representing a reusable unit, the placeholder for an appropriate version of the reusable artifact is created within a container and a first parameter identifying the reusable artifact is assigned to an artifact property of the placeholder. The placeholder further includes a branch property configured to indicate a first null value or a second parameter identifying a branch of the reusable artifact corresponding to a particular variant of the reusable artifact, and a version property configured to indicate a second null value or a third parameter identifying a particular version of the reusable artifact.

Arrangements described herein relate to managing versions of artifacts stored across disparate tools. In a multi-dimensional configuration space, dimensions can be defined. The dimensions can represent respective variations of respective versions of a plurality of artifacts for at least a first configuration of a system. Via the dimensions, versions of the plurality of artifacts can be mapped to at least a corresponding first configuration of the system, the mapped versions of the plurality of artifacts corresponding to the versions of the artifacts used in the first configuration. The first configuration can be identified by a point in the multi-dimensional configuration space defined by the respective dimensions. At least a first of the plurality of artifacts can be stored by a first tool, and at least a second of the plurality of artifacts can be stored by a second tool disparate from the first tool.

Growing community of inventors

Costa Mesa, CA, United States of America

Nicholas D J Crossley