31.1 Overview of Using Dynamic Views on a Web Server

The difficulty in keeping Web content current and accurate increases as change cycles become shorter and more frequent. Using dynamic views as the basis for managing Web sites, you can update Web content without risk of the redundancy and delay common to copy-based update models. The model presented here uses three dynamic views to support the work flow for Web site development: one to create prototypes, one to test changes, and one to deliver completed work. This configuration allows your Web team to test changes thoroughly in the most current Web context without affecting the performance or availability of the external site.

Using dynamic views to develop and deliver Web content offers several advantages:

• You can keep Web content under ClearCase version control, and Rational ClearCase supports a seamless interface with HTML editing tools.

• You can isolate testing, changing, and staging of Web content from the external Web site.

• You can restrict the group of people who can make changes to Web content.

• You can identify baseline states for the Web content. For example, after work that supports a new product release is complete, you can capture the state of the data by labeling the version of all elements included in this new baseline. If the Web site must return to a previous version of the content, it is easy to roll back by using ClearCase views configured to select an earlier baseline.

• If some Web developers are not working at the same site as the external Web server, you can use ClearCase MultiSite to distribute and manage development.