An enterprise-grade configuration management system that provides controlled access to software assets.
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OpenText Dimensions CM
Score 8.0 out of 10
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Dimensions CM is Software Change and Configuration Management for Agile development, developed by Serena Software and now sold by OpenText.
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Pricing
Gemini
IBM DevOps Code ClearCase
OpenText Dimensions CM
Editions & Modules
Gemini Express
$10.00
Per User Per Month
Gemini Enterprise
$850.00
Per 10 Users Per Month
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Gemini
IBM DevOps Code ClearCase
OpenText Dimensions CM
Free Trial
No
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Gemini
IBM DevOps Code ClearCase
OpenText Dimensions CM
Considered Multiple Products
Gemini
Verified User
Engineer
Chose Gemini
It's really not fair to compare Gemini to iCloud, but of the products offered, I could not find one that was a direct comparison to Gemini. What I will say is that Gemini works well in conjunction with iCloud as, without Gemini, iCloud replication across Macs would exacerbate …
Gemini is well suited to help track issues and change requests, projects, bugs, time logs, etc. It is less appropriate for reporting needs or general office management needs.
IBM Rational ClearCase might be better suited for a smaller / simpler code base. Larger code bases really slow it down... but then again there are better alternatives out there for source control
Serena CM is well suited to highly controlled, audited, and process driven environments. It will allow strict segregation of duties, and change traceability. If implemented correctly it will help you quickly build trusts with your auditors. It is also well suited to environments that require constant branching and merging. Due to the complexity of the product and learning curve for your development and operations team it may be overkill in a small shop with loose rules
Rational ClearCase is excellent for handling versioning and branching. No other tool I've used has the depth that ClearCase has when it comes to handling complex branching scenarios and identifying where certain versions of particular files are within a particular configuration.
Rational ClearCase handles parallel development of many dependent applications really well.
The use of ClearCase Views to switch between projects and configurations is extremely convenient as opposed to the local workstation model of the competitors.
Code Promotion: Dimensions CM allows supervisors to control changes to code, in that they delegate requests to developers, and act as a gatekeeper prior to promoting to the next environment. This functionality is configurable so you can set up a workflow that best fits the structure and requirements of your own company.
Code Repository for changes and versioning: Code can be checked out by item or by synchronizing folders. Code revisions can be compared against other revisions or work files. Item histories show which developers made which modifications, and which supervisor and operations personnel were involved in assigning the request and promoting the code to each environment. Additionally a pedigree will show a stream diagram which graphically displays branches and merges.
Deployment: Serena Change Management offers help automating deployment including integrations with SVN and Jenkins. Its newer versions also have a powerful graphical deployment automation tool (Serena Deployment Automation- SDA). It comes with a certain amount of licenses built-in. If you have a many nodes to deploy to there will be separate licensing costs for that.
The only major negative that I have encountered with Serena CM product is that the very power and flexibility of the tool means there is a risk that you will make a mess of things. In other words it gives you plenty of rope to tangle yourself with. I recommend careful, well thought out deployments implementing the built in roles and workflows that can be turned on and configured, using a consistent methodology.
My experience with the Serena help desk support has not been impressive. Though reasonably polite and diligent, the technicians were well trained, and often gave bad advise and terrible scripts. On several occasions I had to rewrite scripts they have me; if I had run them as provided they would have caused even more difficulties than the problem I was trying to solve. I speak of the support in the past tense because I conditioned myself not to call them, it was usually just easier to solve nay problems my self. They do have a good account management team though, and for any major issues you can go thru them.
Gemini's development team continues to improve the product and provides a comprehensive roadmap of upcoming features that makes you want to upgrade as soon as a new version comes out.
Like learning to play checkers, the interface is easy, but the strategy has more of a learning curve. Figuring out the best prompts to use to get the desired outcome with less tries is taking me awhile to develop that skill. The images that I am able to generate are close to "camera-ready", but most do require some tweaking in image editing software to fix AI artifacts like distorted faces and randomly spelled words.
I've never had any problems with the support for the Gemini application itself, but it seems every time I re-install (on a single machine), I run into a licensing issue. As a result, I need to go to the app's website and request that my activation key gets reset or resent. In either case, it's a pain, but as I have to reinstall infrequently, it's a small price to pay for an otherwise solid application.
In my case, it's not that Gemini won; I simply use Gemini regularly as a backup plan to compare results obtained with the leading AI in my corporate environment. I believe it's important to have this comparison of results, especially when dealing with critical issues. I think the most powerful AIs for the general public today are ChatGPT and Gemini, in that order, although CoPilot is very well positioned due to its integration with widely used Microsoft products in the corporate world.
If development is centrallized to one location and your company releases hundreds of customized versions of your software per year, then ClearCase is the best tool for managing the complexity of multiple versions of customized software. If your company has globally distributed development, then I'd recommend Team Foundation Server over ClearCase. If your organization uses Agile Methodologies, then I'd recommend TFS with GIT.
Serena CM is superior to Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) in overall functionality, but does not have very good native integration with Microsoft. Therefore in a Microsoft centric shop with no audit needs ,TFS would be better. Otherwise I would choose Serena CM
Serena has facilitated our annual completion of various audit and technology control certifications. These certifications make a huge difference to our company's reputation and bottom line.