OSLC Server and Client definitions
The concept of Digital Product Traceability is primarily driven by Open Services for Lifecycle Collaaboration (OSLC), an open community that defines a set of specifications to integrate software development. OSLC has evolved and emerged into Application Lifecycle Management and Product Lifecycle Management domains with an intent to ease product development by defining a set of rules for the tools used by these domains to share and present information.
In any OSLC configuration, there is an OSLC provider (server) and an OSLC consumer (client). An OSLC server basically runs a web service that provides software development tool integration and data. An OSLC client provides an interface to the end user primarily to fetch resources and data by connecting to the web services provided by the OSLC server.
OSLC Server
• Enables a system to expose resources such as Requirements, Issues, Parts, etc., in a consistent methodology.
• Allows user to navigate those resources (browse, query) and create them.
• Provides support for Remote UI.
• Sometimes referred to a Upstream.
OSLC Client
• This is the side where Trace links are created and stored.
• Provides the ability to query and update resources from an OSLC Server.
• Can leverage Delegated for Query / Search of Resources or use local capabilities for these needs.
• Manages authentication to the OSLC Server.
• Sometimes referred to as Downstream.