Cradle-5.6 Release
3SL is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Cradle-5.6, the new major release of our requirements management and systems engineering environment. Cradle-5.6 is a full product release, and is accompanied by new documentation and related materials.
Cradle-5.6 includes the enhancements from the Cradle-5.5.1 update to Cradle-5.5 (that we released in April 2007) and enhancements that are specific to the Cradle-5.6 release. The descriptions of Cradle-5.6 in this newsletter and in its Release Notes include all of the enhancements from Cradle-5.5 onwards.
The Cradle-5.6 release provides 43 enhancements to the original Cradle-5.5 release and fixes all known bugs in Cradle-5.5. For a detailed list of all enhancements and bug fixes that is also grouped by Cradle module, please consult:
- The Cradle-5.6 Release Notes
- The What’s New document in the Help menus of the Cradle clients
The major elements of the Cradle-5.6 release are:
- Supported Platforms
- Domain IDs
- Web-Based Help System
- Web Browser Support
- Web UI Extensions
- Cross References to Data Definitions
- Cross Reference Deletion Controls
- Database Sizes
- Document Loader Extensions
- Reference Functions/Operations
- View Details Extensions
- Cross Reference Views
- Metrics in WorkBench
- CMS Unsubmit in WorkBench
- Import/Export in WorkBench
- Comparing Items
- Opening Specific Items
- WorkBench Performance and from the Cradle-5.5.1 update release:
- Replacing View Cells
- Sorting Linked Items
- Symbols Within Other Symbols
- WorkBench Views in Publisher
- Ownership Control in Xref Rules
- Compound Teamwork Flow Names
- Cross Reference Integrity Checks
- LDAP
These exciting new features are described in separate sections later in this newsletter.
A presentation with the filename rr00806-Cradle56_NewFeatures.ppt is available from the Documents section of the Downloads area in our website that describes the new features available in Cradle-5.6 including all changes since Cradle-5.5.
Database Compatibility
Cradle-5.6 has a new format for its project databases. If you upgrade to Cradle-5.6 you must convert all your project databases to the new format. A converter is supplied with the release that will perform the conversions for you. The Cradle-5.6 installers automatically detect the need to run this converter, to ensure that the upgrade is as simple 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-5.6 from Cradle-5.2, or any later version, then you can use either approach. That is, you can either convert Cradle-5.2 (or later) databases to Cradle-5.6 or you can export from Cradle-5.2 (or later) and import into Cradle-5.6. We recommend that you use the conversion approach, but the choice is yours.
However, if you are updating to Cradle-5.6 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-5.6 directly from Cradle-5.1 (or one of its updates) or from an earlier version.
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-5.6 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) then you must use the converter to upgrade to Cradle-5.6.
At Cradle-5.2 we changed the way change histories (edit histories) are stored. Prior to version 5.2, they were stored in the project Configuration Log used in the Cradle Configuration Management System (CMS). From version 5.2 they are 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 simply export from Cradle-5.1 and import into Cradle-5.6, then you will lose your change history information when viewed through Cradle-5.6.
Toolset Fonts
Cradle-5.6 does not have any changes to the set of fonts used by the Cradle Toolset from those that were supplied with Cradle-5.5. These fonts were last changed in Cradle-5.2.
If you upgrade to Cradle-5.6 from Cradle-5.1 (or any of its updates) or an earlier version, then you must apply the new fonts supplied with Cradle-5.6. If you are upgrading from Cradle-5.2 or a later release, you do not need to apply the fonts supplied with Cradle-5.6.
Must I Install Cradle-5.6?
Cradle-5.6 has the enhancements and bug fixes from the Cradle-5.5.1 update to Cradle-5.5 and further enhancements. It is a substantial improvement over Cradle-5.5.
We would like you to use Cradle-5.6 in preference to Cradle-5.5 or any earlier version. That is why we have released it!
If you are currently using Cradle-5.5, there is no immediate need to upgrade to Cradle-5.6. 3SL will continue to support Cradle-5.5 and its update ( Cradle-5.5.1) until after the next major version of Cradle is released.
However, if you are using Cradle-5.3, or an earlier release, then we urge you to upgrade to Cradle-5.6 because:
- You will see some dramatic extensions and improvements
- 3SL no longer supports these releases
Mixing Cradle-5.6 and Earlier Releases
You cannot mix Cradle-5.6 with any earlier release of Cradle. That is, if you decide to install Cradle-5.6 anywhere, then you must install it everywhere.
Specifically:
- Cradle-5.6 servers will not respond to Cradle-5.5 or earlier clients
- Cradle-5.6 clients will not be serviced by Cradle-5.5 or earlier servers
These incompatibilities are failsafe. That is, if you should accidentally fail to upgrade a client to Cradle-5.6, then starting that client will not adversely effect the operation of Cradle-5.6, as the Cradle-5.6 servers will ignore connection attempts from clients of any previous version.
Downloading Cradle-5.6
All Cradle-5.6 download files for Windows and UNIX were added to our website and our mirror site on 2 nd July 2007.
For Windows, the file to download is: Cradle56_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 2.8 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 the largest of these files can be downloaded in 19 minutes. Our mirror site provides even faster downloads.
|
