| When you ask this question, you typically get different answers, depending on whom you ask and the context of your question. What makes matters confusing is that the Rational Unified Process, or the RUP, actually denotes three very different things: -
The RUP is a software development approach that is iterative, architecture-centric , and use-case-driven . It is described in a variety of whitepapers and books. The most comprehensive information can be found in the RUP product itself, which contains detailed guidelines, examples, and templates covering the full software lifecycle. -
The RUP is a well-defined and well-structured software engineering process . It clearly defines who is responsible for what, how things are done, and when to do them. The RUP also provides a well-defined structure for the lifecycle of a RUP project, clearly articulating essential milestones and decision points. -
The RUP is also a process product that provides you with a customizable process framework for software engineering. The RUP product supports process customization and authoring, and a wide variety of processes, or Process Configurations, can be assembled from it. These RUP configurations can be made to support small or large teams and disciplined or less-formal approaches to development. The RUP product contains several out-of-the-box Process Configurations and Process Views that guide analysts, developers, testers, project managers, configuration managers, data analysts, and other team members in how to develop software. The RUP is used by a wide variety of companies in different industry sectors. In this chapter we will get a better understanding of what the RUP is by elaborating on each of these three perspectives of the RUP.  |
