In today's digital age, where the use of technology is pervasive in all aspects of life, the importance of designing user-friendly and accessible digital systems cannot be overstated. That is one reason why Capture has developed a tool called 3C, which stands for Configuration Control for Clarity, and it can make the life easier for a lot of different Clarity professionals, including release managers, clarity operators, technical consultants, or developers. In this blog, we will explore the functionalities and benefits of 3C and why it is unique compared to other solutions on the market.
What is 3C and what does it do?
3C is a flagship product of Capture that provides an add-on solution for Configuration Management for Clarity, which is essentially the automatic transfer of the configuration items from one system to another, using deployment packages. When configuring Clarity, there are usually three environments - development, test, and production - and you need to move the configuration between them during the project. 3C makes this process more efficient and ensures that the configuration of Clarity is done with the highest quality. Moreover, 3C can detect differences between the configuration sets in detail, which allows for comparing two systems to find the differences between them. This feature enables developers and release managers to define changes more easily.
Why Implement 3C?
The three main benefits of using 3C are efficiency, quality, and compliance. Firstly, 3C makes configuration management more efficient by automating the deployment of configuration changes. Secondly, it ensures the highest quality of configuration management by detecting differences between the configuration sets and enabling developers to define code changes efficiently. Thirdly, 3C helps companies achieve compliance requirements by linking business needs to specific configurations. The solution can identify what has changed within a given system and match configuration elements one by one to a specific business need. Additionally, 3C can create deployment packages from configuration changes and deploy them to target systems either automatically audited or in an auditable and transparent way.
What Makes 3C Unique in the Market?
In terms of elements, 3C is one of many DevOps and deployment automation tools in the market. However, what makes 3C unique is that the features implemented are not supported by any other tool on the market today for Clarity as a specific system. The functionality of 3C is simple enough, but to be usable and add real value, it requires a very deep understanding of how Clarity works, which is something that the experts in the PPM team within the company have. Furthermore, no such solution has been produced by Broadcom, the vendor itself. Although competitors have already solved similar problems in-house, none of them have stepped out in front of their customers to present it in a turnkey way with a simple user interface and easy-to-understand evaluations.
How has the market received 3C?
3C has received support from the market, as it quickly found a partner in W&W Informatik, a German company that relies extensively and highly on Clarity for its day-to-day operations. As soon as they bought 3C, they brought a new use case to Capture's attention. It gave them a very useful idea from a business perspective that the transparency of using 3C in their day-to-day operations was much appreciated in that segment due to the very strict supervision rules in Germany. Moreover, when presented, the first question from the customers was whether it is only Clarity that can use this or all other systems, highlighting the problem that is not unique to Clarity.
This raised the question, if it would make sense to use 3C to manage the configuration of other similar enterprise systems, and the evaluation of this idea is currently ongoing within Capture.
Future plans for 3C
Moving forward, at Capture, we are constantly striving to improve and expand our products to meet the needs of our customers. Firstly, our top priority is to ensure a stable operation for our users. To achieve this, we plan to release a new version of 3C for each major Clarity version.
Expanding functionality is another key focus for us. We are committed to prioritizing customer ideas, feedbacks and needs. We plan to continue this trend and implement significant business functionality.
Our development team is currently working on several features that will be a great benefit to our customers. For example, we are implementing source code version tracking, and source control integration file system customization detection, report management and the capability to handle more modern UX elements that will support the extension of configuration management in the Clarity.
As you can see, 3C is a powerful tool for configuration management in Clarity, and it provides a unique set of features that are not available from any other tool on the market today. It has been well-received by the market, and we have already seen significant interest from customers who are looking to improve their configuration management processes. With a strong focus on customer needs and continuous improvement, we are confident that 3C will continue to be a valuable tool for Clarity users for years to come. If you are interested in learning more about 3C or would like to try it for yourself, please contact us or request a demo version.