May 2013 [Cradle-6.8]

Cradle-6.8 Release

3SL is pleased to announce that we released Cradle-6.8 early in February 2013. This is the latest new release of our Requirements Management and Systems Engineering environment and is a small enhancement to previous releases whose primary purpose was to introduce the new single-user products:

Cradle-RM Desktop, a complete requirements management (RM) solution
Cradle-RM Pro, a complete RM solution with full document publishing
Cradle-SE Desktop, a full-lifecycle systems engineering (SE) solution
Cradle-SE Pro, a full lifecycle SE solution with full document publishing

Cradle-6.8 is a full product release, and is accompanied by rewritten documentation and related materials.

The Cradle-6.8 release provides some enhancements to the previous Cradle-6.7 release. For a detailed list of all enhancements and bug fixes that is also grouped by Cradle module, please consult:

The Cradle-6.8 Release Notes
The What’s New link in the Online Help Table of Contents

The major elements of the Cradle-6.8 release are:

Support for new Cradle products
A range of new example templates for Document Publisher, each with a set of guidance notes built into the template
A new Publish a simple document of: mechanism in the Start Page so simple documents can be produced very easily of any item type
A new schema called quick-start has been added to the example schemas available for new projects, with its own schema reference and process guides
A new –identity option has been added to the c_table utility to parametise the query used to generate its output
The output from the Conformance Checker has been completely revised to provide an improved analysis and more complete statistics

These extensions will be described in subsequent newsletters.

Database Compatibility

Cradle-6.8 has a new format for its databases. If you upgrade to Cradle-6.8 you must convert all your databases to the new format. A converter is supplied with the release that will perform the conversions for you. The Cradle-6.8 installers automatically detect the need to run this converter, so 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 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

However, we always recommend using the database converters that are supplied with Cradle.

Upgrading from Cradle-5.7

Please be advised that in Cradle-6.0 we changed the internal representation of text inside frames, so that it better supports the concept of paragraphs. So, the database converter for Cradle-6.0, the executable cvt_5760.exe, performs some text manipulations as part of the database conversion. If you export from Cradle-5.7 and import into Cradle-6.8, then these text manipulations will not occur. You may therefore find a difference between a database conversion and an export followed by an import.

We always recommend using the database converters that are supplied with Cradle.

Must I Install Cradle-6.8?

Cradle-6.8 has some useful enhancements. It is a major improvement over Cradle-6.7, Cradle-6.6 and Cradle-6.5 and a very major improvement over Cradle-6.4 or any previous release. We would like you to use Cradle-6.8 in preference to Cradle-6.7 or any earlier version. That is why we released it!

Please consult the Cradle-6.8 Release Notes to see if any of the enhancements or bug fixes are relevant to you.

3SL will continue to support Cradle-6.4 through Cradle-6.7 until the next major version of Cradle is released.

However, if you are using Cradle-6.3, or an earlier release, then we urge you to upgrade to Cradle-6.8 because:

You will see some dramatic extensions and improvements
3SL no longer supports Cradle-6.3 or releases prior to this

Mixing Cradle-6.8 and Earlier Releases

You cannot mix Cradle-6.8 with any earlier release of Cradle. This means that if you decide to install Cradle-6.8 anywhere, then you must install it everywhere.

Specifically:

Cradle-6.8 servers will not respond to Cradle-6.7 or earlier clients
Cradle-6.8 clients will not be serviced by Cradle-6.7 or earlier servers

These incompatibilities are failsafe. That is, if you should accidentally fail to upgrade a client to Cradle-6.8, then starting that client will not adversely affect the operation of Cradle-6.8, as the Cradle-6.8 servers will ignore connection attempts from clients of any previous version.

Cradle-6.8 Security Codes

Cradle-6.8 uses different Security Codes to all previous versions. Before you can install Cradle-6.8, you will need to request a new Security Code.

Cradle-6.8 Security Codes will only be provided to users who have an active maintenance agreement with 3SL or one of our partners and distributors.

If you are a 3SL customer with active maintenance, you can download a single temporary Cradle-6.8 Security Code directly from our website so that you can assess Cradle-6.8. These codes last for 40 days. For further information, please visit the 3SL website, login, and visit the Customer part of the Support area within the site. Your login account must be set to customer or site representative to be able to get these 40-day Security Codes:

Cradle securitycode website page

Cradle-6.8 Named Users

If your Cradle system includes named user licences, then you will need a new named_users file from 3SL for these named users since the named_users file is also linked to a specific Cradle version. You should receive this file automatically, but if you do not then please request it from 3SL.

Please note that the release of Cradle-6.8 is not an opportunity for you to change the user names encoded in a named_users file. You can change these user names either when you renew your Cradle maintenance or if you purchase new Cradle licences.

Downloading Cradle-6.8

All Cradle-6.8 download files for Windows and Linux/UNIX were added to our website and to our mirror site on 12th February 2013.

For Windows, the file to download is: Cradle68_Setup.exe

Note that Cradle-6.8 is a 32-bit application. It will run on 32-bit and 64-bit Windows platforms, including Windows Vista and Windows 7. However, Cradle-6.8 does not support 64-bit versions of Microsoft Office, and specifically Cradle-6.8 does not support 64-bit Office 2010.

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

linux-ia32.Z for all 32-bit compatible versions and types of Linux
sparcs2.Z for Sun Solaris 2.8 or later on Sparc

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 20 Mbit/sec Internet connection so that the largest of these files can be downloaded in less than 3 minutes. Our mirror site provides even faster downloads.

If you encounter any problems downloading directly from 3SL, then please contact us and we can arrange alternative electronic means for the software delivery.

Announcing Cradle-7.3 - start your free trial here