An overview of binary artifacts and repository managers

Here is the design overview of integrating TeamForge, a full ALM suite with binary repository managers.

An important aspect of the end-to-end development lifecycle is the creation and storage of software packages that are often binary artifacts. In the Java world, these are usually reusable jars that are used by other projects. Binary artifact repository managers are software systems that manage, version, and store binary artifacts. Examples of such repository managers are JFrog Artifactory, and Sonatype Nexus.

What is a binary artifact repository?

A binary artifact repository stores binary artifacts along with the metadata in a defined directory structure, conceptually similar to a source code repository. The metadata describes the binary software artifact and includes information such as dependencies, versioning, and build promotions. Maven is the widely used tool for dependency management, especially for Java projects. Maven represents dependencies in an XML file called Project Object Model (POM). Other tools can use similar approaches to store documentation archives, source archives, Flash libraries and applications, and Ruby libraries.

How does a binary artifact repository manager help?

Some of the advantages of using a binary artifact repository manager are:

Dependency management: Nexus can act as a Maven repository. Maven is a widely used Java dependency management and build tool.
Efficient builds: With the help of a binary artifact repository manager, you can save the download time from public repositories as the artifacts once downloaded are cached locally.
Predictability and release stability: Once published onto a release repository, the binary artifact and metadata do not change. It ensures predictable and repeatable builds.
Control and audit: If you want to standardize libraries that are used in your software, the binary artifact repository helps track the versions of your software components. Also it enables you to audit the licenses of your third-party components used in your software.
Promotes collaboration: The binary artifact repository enables you to share components with other teams.

How to integrate Nexus with TeamForge?

Important: TeamForge-Nexus integration is possible on RHEL/CentOS platforms only. It's not supported in SUSE. See Software requirements for CollabNet TeamForge 16.3.

TeamForge supports integration with Nexus in both the ALM and SCM modes. For the Nexus and Nexus professional versions 2.9, 2.10, 2.11,2.12 and 2.13 the Nexus integration has been tested by CollabNet.

To integrate Nexus with TeamForge:

Download and install the Nexus OSS if you do not have a Nexus instance running.
Download and install the CollabNet Nexus integration plugin.
Change your build system and use the CollabNet supplied Maven deploy plugin for end-to-end traceability.
Set up the TeamForge Orchestrate activity source to provide your teams with end-to-end visibility from requirements to source code all the way to deployed binary artifacts.

Installing the TeamForge Nexus integration plugin

You need to have the following information handy before you start off with the installation:

Installation path of the running Nexus instance.
URL of TeamForge.
TeamForge site administrator credentials.
A suitable name for your Nexus instance; the Binaries App in TeamForge refers to this name.

You must have a Nexus instance running for the integration. If you are upgrading from an earlier version of the plugin, ensure that the old plugin is completely removed from the directory and the new plugin is unzipped on the same directory before you restart the Nexus instance.

To set up a Nexus server, see Install Nexus.
To install the TeamForge-Nexus integration plugin, see Install the TeamForge-Nexus integration plugin.
To upgrade the TeamForge-Nexus integration plugin, see Upgrade the TeamForge-Nexus integration plugin.

Accessing Nexus through TeamForge: You have to introduce a TeamForge project context in Nexus and allow authentication to use TeamForge credentials for logging into Nexus directly. Accessing Nexus through the TeamForge project toolbar provides you with Single Sign-on (SSO). It logs you into Nexus automatically with the project context. You can allow RBAC (Role Based Access Control) using TeamForge roles.

Authentication policies

Your site administrator can enable the integration with the following two authentication mechanisms:

TeamForge and native Nexus login (default)
TeamForge only

In both the cases, you can use your TeamForge credentials to log on to Nexus. If your Site Administrator has used the default setup, you can use your pre-existing Nexus credentials.

Roles and permissions

Following are the two administrative privileges in Nexus:

Nexus admin (Site Admin in TeamForge will be a Nexus admin)
Project admin (permissions to create, update, and delete binary artifact repositories.)

For all the other users, privileges are based on the TeamForge RBAC setup.