What is Rational Unified Process (RUP)

The concept of Rational Unified Process (RUP) came from the Rational Software Corporation, a division of IBM (International Business Machines Corporation). It keeps a check on effective project management and high-quality production of software. The basic methodology followed in RUP is based on a comprehensive web-enabled program development and object-oriented approach.The 'Rational Unified Process' adopts the 'Unified Modeling Language' and provides the best practiced guidelines, templates and illustrations of all aspects for program development. Here is a simple breakdown of all the aspects related to this concept, so as to give you a brief understanding as to what is rational unified process (RUP)?

There are primarily four phases or stages of development that is concluded with a release in RUP. Here is a quick review of all the four stages or cycles.

Inception Phase
In the inception phase, the goal is to develop the parent idea into a product vision by defining its scope and the business case. The business case includes business context, factors influencing success, risk assessment and financial forecast. This is to get an understanding of the business drivers and to justify the launch of the project. This phase is to identify the work flows required by the project.

Elaboration Phase
Here the architectural foundation, project plan and high-risk factors of the project are determined, after analyzing the problem domain. For establishing these objectives, an in-and-out knowledge of the system is a must. In other words, the performance requirements, scope and functionality of the system, influence the deciding factor in the architectural concept of the project. Architectural and planning decisions are governed by the most critical use-cases. So, a perfect understanding of the use-cases and an articulated vision is what this phase of elaboration looks forward to achieve. This is an important phase. Since, after this phase the project is carried on to a level where any changes might cause disastrous outcome for the entire operation.

Construction Phase
As the name suggests, the phase involves construction of the software system or project. Here, development of the remaining components and application features is performed. Thereafter, they are integrated into the product which is moved from an architectural baseline to a completed system. In short, the source code and the application design is created for the software for its transition to the user community. The construction phase is the first external release of the software, wherein, adequate quality with optimization of resources is achieved rapidly.

Transition Phase
Transition phase marks the transition of the project from development to production. This stage is to ensure that the user requirements have been satisfied and met by the product. The initiative is done by testing the product before its release as a beta version. This beta version is enhanced by bug fixing, site preparation, manual completion, defect identification and improving performance and usability. Other objectives are also taken up. They include

• Training users and maintainers for successful operation of the system
• Purchasing hardware
• Converting data from old to new systems
• Arranging for activities for successful launch of the product
• Holding sessions of learning lessons for improving future process and tool environment.

Rational Unified Process mentions six best practices, which have to be kept in mind when designing any software. These practices help prevent flaws in the project development and create more scope for efficient productivity. These six practices are as follows.

1. An iterative (executing the same set of instructions a given number of times or until a specified result is obtained) approach towards the software development.
2. Managing user requirements.
3. Use and test individual components before being integrated into a larger system.
Use 'Unified Modeling Language' tool to get a visual model of the components, users and their interaction relating to the project. Constant testing of the software quality is considered one of the best practices in any software development.
4. For a successful iterative development, monitoring, tracking and controlling changes made to a system is essential for a team to work together as a single unit.

The concept of rational unified process has endless explanation and description. Each and every important and essential considerations in a software development has been defined to its root. RUP results in a reduced IT costs, improved IT business, higher quality, higher service level and sharper adaptability, and most importantly, higher ROI (return on investments), and many other benefits. The above is just a theoretical brief explanation to the question as to what is RUP? However, a clearer and elaborated idea can be achieved once the process is put into practical use.