Cradle-5.4.1 Release

3SL is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Cradle-5.4.1 of our requirements management and systems engineering environment. Cradle-5.4.1 is a minor update to the Cradle-5.4 major release that we announced last month. It has been produced at the request of 3SL customers to make some enhancements available in advance of the next major Cradle release, Cradle-5.5.

Cradle-5.4.1 includes the enhancements from Cradle-5.4 and both of the Cradle-5.3.1 and Cradle-5.3.2 updates to Cradle-5.3 (released in June and September 2006 respectively) and enhancements that are specific to Cradle-5.4.1. The description of Cradle-5.4.1 in its Release Notes includes all of the enhancements from Cradle-5.3. However, for brevity, this newsletter only lists the enhancements from Cradle-5.4. To access the previous newsletter that contains a full description of the new features in Cradle-5.4, click here.

The Cradle-5.4.1 release provides 3 enhancements to the Cradle-5.4 release and fixes all known bugs in Cradle-5.3. For a detailed list of all enhancements and bug fixes that is also grouped by Cradle module, please consult:

• The Cradle-5.4.1 Release Notes
• The What’s New document in the Help menus of the Cradle clients

The enhancements in the Cradle-5.4.1 release are all concerned with making copies of baselined items, described later in this newsletter.

A presentation with the filename rr00803-Cradle541_NewFeatures.ppt is available from the Documents section of the Downloads area in our website that describes the new features available in Cradle-5.4.1 including all changes since Cradle-5.3.

Database Compatibility

Being an update, Cradle-5.4.1 does not introduce any database changes from Cradle-5.4. Cradle-5.4 databases use the same format as Cradle-5.3 databases, so if you upgrade to Cradle-5.4.1 from Cradle-5.3, you do not need to convert your databases. You do need to convert your project databases if you are upgrading to Cradle-5.4.1 from a release earlier than Cradle-5.3. Converters are supplied with the release that will perform the conversions for you. The Cradle-5.4.1 installers automatically will detect the need to run these converters, to ensure that the upgrade process is as straightforward as possible.

It is also possible to upgrade to a new release by creating a new Cradle installation with new project databases in new directories and using exports and imports to move data between the databases of the old and new versions. With this approach, you could use the new version and its databases, or you could revert to the old Cradle version and its databases. These two sets of databases would initially have the same contents, but this would remain true only for so long as data is not changed in one set that is not also changed in the other.

Customers who adopt this approach use a procedure similar to:

• Export data from the databases in the previous release
• Install the new release
• Create new projects in the new release
• Import the data from the export files into the new databases

If you are updating to Cradle-5.4.1 from Cradle-5.2, or one of its updates, then you can use either approach. That is, you can either convert Cradle-5.2 databases to Cradle-5.4.1 or you can export from Cradle-5.2 and import into Cradle-5.4.1. We recommend that you use the conversion approach, but the choice is yours.

However, if you are updating to Cradle-5.4.1 from Cradle-5.1 (or one of its updates) or an earlier release then you must read the next section very carefully.

Upgrading from Cradle-5.1 or Earlier Releases

This section ONLY applies to those customers who are upgrading to Cradle-5.4.1 directly from Cradle-5.1 (or one of its updates) or from an earlier version, such as Cradle-5.0 (or one of its updates) or Cradle-4.0U329.

If you have not used change histories (edit histories) in the earlier version of Cradle, then you can still use the export-and-import approach to the upgrade to Cradle-5.4.1 described in the previous section, if you wish.

However, if you have used change histories (edit histories) in Cradle-5.1 (or any of its updates), or Cradle-5.0 (or any of its updates), or in Cradle-4.0U329 then you must use the converter to upgrade to Cradle-5.4 .

The reason for this is that at Cradle-5.2 we changed the way change histories (edit histories) are stored. Prior to version 5.2, they were stored as events in the project Configuration Log used by the Cradle Configuration Management System (CMS). From version 5.2 they have been stored in CHANGE HISTORY frames in the items in the database. Therefore, simply exporting and importing will not convert the change history information from the Configuration Log to CHANGE HISTORY frames, and so if you export from one of these old versions and import into Cradle-5.4.1, then you will lose your change histories when the database items are viewed through Cradle-5.4.1.

Toolset Fonts

Cradle-5.4.1 does not include any changes to the set of fonts used by the Cradle Toolset from those that were supplied with Cradle-5.3. These fonts were last changed in Cradle-5.2.

If you upgradeto Cradle-5.4.1 from Cradle-5-1 (or any of its updates) or an earlier version, then you must apply the new fonts supplied with Cradle-5.4.1. If you are upgrading from Cradle-5.2 (or one of its updates), then you do not need to apply the fonts supplied with Cradle-5.4.1.

Must I Install Cradle-5.4.1?

Cradle-5.4.1 contains enhancements to the Cradle-5.4 major release, and all enhancements and bug fixes in Cradle-5.4. It represents a substantial improvement over Cradle-5.3, but only a minor update to Cradle-5.4.

We would like you to use Cradle-5.4.1 in preference to Cradle-5.4 or an earlier version. That is why we released it!

If you are currently using Cradle-5.4 and you use the Cradle Configuration Management System (CMS) then we recommend that you upgrade to Cradle-5.4.1 as the enhancements in it will be helpful to your users.

If you are currently using Cradle-5.3, there is no immediate need to upgrade to Cradle-5.4.1. 3SL will continue to support Cradle-5.3 and its updates ( Cradle-5.3.1 and Cradle-5.3.2) until the next major version of Cradle is released.

However, if you are currently using Cradle-5.2, or any earlier release, then we strongly urge you to upgrade to Cradle-5.4.1 because:

• You will see some dramatic extensions and improvements
• 3SL no longer supports these releases

Mixing Cradle-5.4.1 and Earlier Releases

You can combine Cradle-5.4.1 and Cradle-5.4. That is:

• Cradle-5.4.1 servers will respond to Cradle-5.4 clients
• Cradle-5.4.1 clients will be serviced by Cradle-5.4 servers

You cannot mix Cradle-5.4.1 or Cradle-5.4 with any earlier release of Cradle. That is, if you decide to install Cradle-5.4.1 or Cradle-5.4anywhere, then you must install it everywhere.

Specifically:

• Cradle-5.4.1 and Cradle-5.4 servers will not respond to Cradle-5.3 or earlier clients
• Cradle-5.4.1 and Cradle-5.4 clients will not be serviced by Cradle-5.3 or earlier servers

These incompatibilities are failsafe. That is, if you accidentally fail to upgrade a client running Cradle-5.3.2 or an earlier release, starting that client will not adversely affect the operation of either Cradle-5.4.1 or Cradle-5.4 as both Cradle-5.4.1 and Cradle-5.4 servers will ignore connection attempts from clients of any previous version.

Downloading Cradle-5.4.1

All Cradle-5.4.1 download files for Windows and UNIX were added to our website on 23 rd November 2006.

For Windows, the file to download is: Cradle541_Setup.exe

For UNIX, your must download the boot and core.Z filesets, and also download the fileset that contains the executable files for your architecture:

• hp700_10.Z or hp800_10.Z for HP HP-UX 10.20 or later
• ibm5.Z for IBM AIX 5.1 or later
• linux-ia32.Z for all compatible versions and types of Linux
• sparcs2.Z for Sun Solaris 2.5.1 or later
• win32pc.Z for Windows executables hosted on a UNIX server

So, if you are running on UNIX, you will need to download a minimum of 3 filesets.

If you have a UNIX server that provides executables for multiple architectures, then you will need to download boot, core.Z and filesets for all architectures provided by your server.

If you are running a mixed UNIX and Windows environment, such as UNIX servers and Windows clients, then you will need to download the Windows self-extracting executable and all UNIX filesets that are needed for your environment.

3SL has a dedicated 2 Mbit/sec Internet connection which means that even the largest of these files can be downloaded in 16 minutes. We also offer a mirror site, which provides even faster downloads.