Tasktop's New Sync Studio Provides First Visual ALM Mapping and Monitoring Tool for ALM Architects

VANCOUVER, British Columbia and RESTON, Va., March 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- (EclipseCon 2012, Booth #25) -- Tasktop Technologies (www.tasktop.com), creators of Eclipse Mylyn and a leader in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Automation solutions, today announced Sync Studio, an extension of its Task Federation™ platform that makes it dramatically easier for organizations to connect, configure and maintain medium- and large-scale ALM infrastructures. Offered as a new component of Tasktop Sync, Sync Studio provides visual cross-ALM system task and workflow mapping, ALM architecture design, monitoring tools to ease integration maintenance and alert notifications for project and system administrators.

"As we've been rolling out Tasktop Sync over the past year to IT organizations trying to automate Agile ALM and DevOps architectures across the enterprise, the process of taking inventory and managing integrations between all of their disparate tools has become extremely messy, frustrating and time-consuming," said Mik Kersten, CEO of Tasktop Technologies and creator of the Eclipse Mylyn open source project. "Sync Studio makes it possible for software delivery organizations to gain control of this chaos by providing a single tool for viewing the design, integration and performance of today's complex ALM architectures with an easy-to-use visual design and authoring tool."

Tasktop continues to solve major challenges for software organizations that are implementing enterprise-wide Agile and ALM modernization initiatives by connecting both developers, through Tasktop Dev, and cross-functional enterprise teams, through Tasktop Sync, to automate the entire application lifecycle. All Tasktop products leverage the Eclipse Mylyn task-based integration framework to provide a more strategic and lightweight synchronization solution than standard REST API and pure data-store integrations. Its tools provide visibility into ALM work flow, real-time data sharing of cross-function activities and context into actual performance and business value. With Sync Studio, the company continues to help IT organizations synchronize and automate development processes to deliver market value quicker, reduce inefficiencies and promote collaboration and innovation by connecting individuals and teams across the enterprise.

"Standard integration of ALM tools is typically limited since it only addresses point-to-point functionality and can then lack the comprehensive visibility, interoperability and traceability needed for a fully synchronized ALM tool stack," said Melinda Ballou, program director for the Application Lifecycle Management and Executive Strategies service at IDC, a research advisory firm headquartered in Framingham, MA. "With software driving innovation and with challenges resulting from complex ALM infrastructure, complex sourcing and silo-ed departments, IT organizations need to be able to architect and gain control of automated ALM solutions. This automation is sorely needed to help drive effective software delivery and competitive benefits."

To help IT organizations scale Tasktop Sync deployments and better manage the growing number of ALM systems in a typical tool stack, Sync Studio provides a whole new set of ALM infrastructure management tools. Capabilities include:

• A Unified View across the ALM Stack: Sync Studio presents ALM architects and administrators with a comprehensive and "live" architectural view of current tools and processes, and the associated interdependencies and roadblocks that need to be addressed.
• Visual Mapping for ALM Administrators: Sync Studio provides automated mapping capabilities for ALM administrators to author and configure task, data and workflow connectivity and integration between ALM servers.
• Cross-repository Monitoring and Administration: Sync Studio helps maintain the health and performance of enterprise-wide ALM architectures through the regular monitoring of inter-tool functionality and centralized administration of changes, maintenance, trouble-shooting and alert notifications.  
• End-to-end Traceability for the Lifecycle: through its Task Federation platform, Sync Studio provides complete ALM traceability that is available through the visual mapping and visibility capabilities now available in the tool.  

In addition to Sync Studio, Tasktop also is introducing Tasktop Sync 2.3 with new integrations for ThoughtWorks' Mingle and Accept360, as well as an updated Mylyn-based Sync integration for IBM Rational Team Concert. It is part of a coordinated Tasktop rollout that also includes Tasktop Dev 2.3 and builds on the new Eclipse Mylyn 3.7. Tasktop Dev now includes support for Gerrit and the Jenkins continuous integration server, and new workspace provisioning tools for HP ALM. With these additions, Tasktop now supports more than 70 ALM tools.

Availability
Tasktop Sync 2.3 with Sync Studio is being demonstrated now at EclipseCon 2012 (http://www.eclipsecon.org/2012/) and will be generally available on April 17.  Tasktop Dev 2.3 is available today.

About Tasktop Technologies
Tasktop Technologies is the industry's leading provider of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Automation and integration software. Thousands of IT organizations depend on Tasktop's commercial and open source solutions to connect developers, testers, business analysts and project managers who use a wide variety of Agile and ALM tools hosted both on premise and in the cloud.  By automating and connecting the software lifecycle, Tasktop is solving one of the biggest challenge facing large-scale software delivery organizations – the complete disconnect and brittle integrations of ALM tools. Its Task Federation™ technology delivers on the promise of a unified ALM stack through a partner ecosystem that integrates more than 70 disparate ALM tools with real-time connectivity and cross-repository workflow support.  Tasktop created and leads the Eclipse Mylyn project, with more than 1 million downloads per month, upon which its commercial Tasktop Sync ALM middleware and Tasktop Dev IDE tools. All Tasktop tools are built to enable organizations to gain a competitive advantage in today's software-driven economy by providing the ALM Automation™ needed to gain visibility, predictability and productivity across the software development lifecycle.  For more information, visit http://tasktop.com.

Media Contact:
Christie Denniston
Catapult PR-IR
[email protected]
O: 303-581-7760, ext. 13
M: 303-827-5164

SOURCE Tasktop Technologies