IBM offers two products for requirements management, IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS (DOORS) and IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Next (DOORS Next), that have similar capabilities but different implementation and strategic opportunities. DOORS is a market-leading solution for requirements management with a rich scripting language, a wide range of RM capabilities, and a large community of active users. It is suitable for large and small projects and integrates with other products. DOORS Next is a collaboration platform with a web client that offers visual requirements definition, work item and test integration, and planning capabilities. It runs as an application on the Jazz server and can be integrated with other IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management products. Both products provide traceability, requirements-driven development and testing, and link to design and modeling resources, and can be used together. DOORS offers mature capabilities such as structured requirements specification modules, multi-level traceability, electronic signatures, baselines, and customizable views. It also has a programmable API called DXL and supports requirements change management. DOORS Next uses Jazz Team Server to support team collaboration and has a web client that allows users to define requirements in rich-text documents and visual representations. Both products use Engineering Document Generation and IBM Engineering Lifecycle Optimization – Publishing to generate customizable graphical reports.
For a high-level comparison of the client and server architecture in both tools, see the next diagram.
For more information about DOORS, see the DOORS documentation.
For information about using the ELM, see Getting started with DOORS Next.