I realize that subject line makes very little sense to non-IBMers, let me translate:
IBM Tivoli Identity Manager version 5.0 released to manufacturing last night just before midnight EST!
That may still not make much sense to some folks, so let me break it down further:
The project that I’ve been working on for almost 2-years was finally released last night on schedule!
This is a huge thing due to the size of the project, the size of the team, the aggressive schedule, and that few of us are still sane after the two years :)
This release has a lot of “firsts” that I was directly involved in that will positively impact our customers:
- First time to have team members in all four US time zones. The joke is that I moved to Denver specifically for this reason. [Ok, this one doesn’t impact our customers but it’s a fun fact.]
- First time to have a hardware sizing tool available at release instead of 90 days after release. This is vital as without a sizing tool our customers just have to guess what kind of hardware they need for their deployments.
- First time to have a Performance Tuning Guide available at GA (general availability – about 5 days after RTM) instead of 90 days after release. This is important for customers with medium to large environments as well as the IBM Service team who is helping them deploy the version. [Well, technically we aren’t going to hit GA but rather 1.5 weeks after GA. Still that’s better than 12 weeks!]
- First time to release an internal-only document for Support and Services highlighting some known rough spots in the product so they can guide customers around them.
- And best of all: it’s the first time that product performance and scalability have been an integral focus of a release from the design phase. In all past releases performance and scalability have been, literally, the very last thing looked at just before we release. I’m unable to say in a public forum just how much faster the product is without all of you signing an NDA. Just trust me that It’s Faster and It Scales Better and that’s a Very Good Thing for our customers and for me!
Please excuse me while I do the engineer’s happy dance for about a week.
Digital Ramblings 
Grats!
That’s awesome Case! I wish our dev team was so organized. I often find myself asking for a couple of the very things you reference, and I don’t get them…I get to tinker and find out later as necessary, so training, sales, and my support team are walking blindly into a lot of these rough spots without any idea that they are coming or how to deal with them. Mucho kudos for vastly improving on a cycle that few have much success breaking!
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*happy dance*
I’m smiling and nodding madly here in tropical Austin, but am wildly excited for you and quite impressed! Yay Casey! Congratulations!
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Way to go, Casey! I’m sorry to hear that it came at the cost of your sanity though. ;-)
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I don’t grok a lot of what you wrote, but it sounds like congratulations are in order! :-)
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Don’t worry – not many people do. My relatives, thinking I’m speaking Greek or Hebrew, smile and nod politely when I talk about work :)
I will gladly accept your congratulations however!
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Uh… make that GEEK or Hebrew…
…and you are Blanche, you are speaking Geek. :-)
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