Rational Unified Process
Kamphol Wipawayangkool
University of Houston – Clear Lake
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
This is a research paper about the Rational Unified Process (RUP), an approach to
develop a system. With iterations in each phase of the process, the RUP provides more
advantages than the traditional waterfall process. The paper covers the overview of the
RUP.
Keywords
Rational Unified Process (RUP), Waterfall Model, Iteration, Unified Modeling Language
(UML)
1 INTRODUCTION
The RUP is a software engineering process. It guides a development team in an
organization how to assign tasks and responsibilities. Rather than focusing on the
production of large amount of paper documents, the RUP focuses on the development
and maintenance of models—semantically rich representations of the software system
under development. Nowadays, the RUP is the appropriate approach to a guide for how
to use the Unified Modeling Language (UML) effectively. The UML is an industry-
standard language that allows us to communicate requirements, architectures and designs
clearly.
2 PROCESS OVERVIEW
The process can be illustrated in two axes – The first is the horizontal axis that
represents time and the dynamic aspect of the process, and it is expressed in terms of
cycles, phases, and iterations. The other is the vertical axis that represents the static
aspect of the process: how it is described in terms of activities, artifacts, workers and
workflows.
3 DYNAMIC ASPECT
In RUP, the software lifecycle is broken into cycles, and each cycle works on a new
generation of the system. One cycle has four consecutive phases:

Inception phase

Elaboration phase

Construction phase

Transition phase
Inception Phase
The purpose of inception phase is to have an initial business case, and defined
concept and scope of the system. The business case includes success criteria, risk
assessment, estimate of the resources needed, and a phase plan focusing on the criteria to
accept whether the system should be passed to the next phase. The deliverables of this
phase are vision document, use-case model, iteration plan, and initial business case.
At the end of this phase, the criteria for evaluation are about the scope definition
and credibility of cost and schedule estimates, and risks.
Elaboration Phase
The purpose of elaboration phase is to analyze the problems, establish a sound
architectural foundation, develop the project plan, and eliminate the highest risk elements
of the project. This phase ensures that architectures, requirements, and plans are stable
enough, and risks are sufficiently mitigated so that the cost and schedule of the entire of
the development can be determined. Arguably, this phase is the most critical of all
phases. The deliverables of this phase are a software architecture description, a revised
business case, a revised risk lists, a more-completed use-case model, iteration plans, and
a development plan for the overall project.
At the end of this phase, the criteria for evaluation are about the stableness of the
architecture, vision, and development plan. In addition, the actual expenditure must be
determined against the planned expenditure whether it is acceptable.
Construction Phase
All remaining components and application features are implemented and
integrated into the system. All features are completely tested. The outcome of this phase
is a product ready to deliver into hands of users. In addition, it consists of the user
manuals and description of the current release.
At the end of this phase, the release of the system is often called a beta release.
The main evaluation is the maturity of the system to be used in the hands of users.
Transition Phase
The purpose of this phase is to transition the system to the user community by
focusing on the activities to put the system into the hands of the users. After given to
users, issues or problems typically arise. Therefore, the new and corrected releases must
be developed. The activities include several iterations, fixed, and enhanced releases.
More importantly, user feedback should be concerned for product configuring,
installation, and usability issues.
The primary evaluation is whether the users are satisfied. In addition, the actual
and planned expenditures must be determined whether it is acceptable.
Iteration
Each phase in the RUP can be broken into iterations. The essence of iteration is to
repeat the sequence to yield results successively closer to the required product. Iteration
is a complete development loop resulting in a release of an executable product, which
grows significantly from iteration to iteration to become the final system.
Compared to the traditional waterfall process, the iteration of RUP has more
advantages as the following:

Risks are mitigated earlier

Better overall quality of the system

Allow for changes, and change is more manageable

Continuous integration

Higher level of reuse

The project team can learn along the way of development
4 STATIC ASPECT
The four modeling elements in the RUP are:

Workers (who) defines the behavior and responsibilities of an individual

Activities (how) is a unit of work an individual in that role may be asked to do

Artifacts (what) is a piece of information that is produced or used by a process

Workflows (when) is a sequence of activities that produces a result of
observable value
Core Workflows
Business Modeling
RUP uses business uses cases to document business processes. It assures a
common understanding among all stakeholders of what and how business process needs
to be supported in the organization.
Requirements
The goal is to describe what the system should do and allow the developer and the
users to agree on that description. Use cases are identified, representing the behavior of
the system. Use cases functions as a unifying thread throughout the system development
cycle.
Analysis and Design
The goal is to show how the system will be realized in the implementation phase.
Analysis and design results in a design model, and optionally an analysis model. The
design model serves as an abstraction or blueprint of the source code. The design
activities center on the notion of the architecture. The architecture also increases the
quality of any model built during the system development.
Implementation
The purpose is to define the organization of code, implement classes and objects
in terms of components, test the developed components as units, and to integrate the
subsystem into an executable system. In addition, the RUP describes how to reuse or
create newly components.
Test
Given the iteration approach throughout each phase in the RUP, the defects are
likely to be found as early as possible.
Deployment
The goal is to produce the system release successfully, and deliver it to the users.
It covers such activities as producing the external release, installing software, providing
help to users. This workflow contains less detail than other workflows.
Project Management
This workflow focuses on mostly on the iteration of the development process. It
provides a framework for managing risk, guidelines for developing a system. It will
remarkably improve the chances of delivering successful system.
Configuration and Change Management
This workflow describes how to control a number of artifacts created by many
people in a project. Control helps avoid confusion, and also help keep track version of
components and system releases.
Environment
The purpose of this workflow is to provide software development organization
with the software development environment – both processes and tools – that are needed
to support the team. It focuses on the activities to configure the process, and to develop
the guidelines needed to support a project.
REFERENCES
1. Rational Unified Process: Best Practices for Software Development Teams. Rational
Software White Paper TP026B, Rev 11/01. Rational Software, 2001. Retrieved from
http://www.rational.com/products/whitepapers/100420.jsp
2. Using the Rational Unified Process: Section 3 – Requirements and Iterations. Sample
of RUP materials. Fhoton Learning, 2002. Retrieved from
http://www.fhoton.com/samples/RUPSample.pdf
3. Sample of RUP job aid. Fhoton Learning, 2002. Retrieved from
http://www.fhoton.com/samples/RUPAid.pdf