Giva Change Management vs. IBM DevOps Code ClearCase

Giva Change Management is well-suited for a very busy IT department with multiple changes from multiple teams. There is an excellent change calendar which assists us in quickly identifying conflicting changes. Implementation was straightforward and efficient. Initially, we configured and customized the platform largely on our own with some assistance from Giva. Today, administration is shared between our Service Desk team lead, NOC supervisor, and myself. None of us is a dedicated Giva administrator; it is simply part of our broader responsibilities, which says a lot about how lightweight the ongoing maintenance is with Giva.

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

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Extremely buggy.
• Sometimes the repository gets locked for no reason.
• Slow.

Incentivized

Giva is easy to set up and effortless to update when areas for improvement are identified. New users can learn our processes quickly since the workflow is intuitive and easy to follow. Giva helps us navigate through our Change Management meetings and we can quickly identify potential problems with RFCs using the system.

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.

Incentivized

• Managed code versioning for many years.
• Only one person can edit code at a time - slows processing down.
• IBM is an expensive product to support.

Incentivized