Rational Unified Process (RUP)is an object-oriented and Web-enabled program development methodology. According to Rational (developers of Rational Rose and the Unified Modeling Language), RUP is like an online mentor that provides guidelines, templates, and examples for all aspects and stages of program development. RUP and similar products — such as Object-Oriented Software Process (OOSP), and the OPEN Process — are comprehensive software engineering tools that combine the procedural aspects of development (such as defined stages, techniques, and practices) with other components of development (such as documents, models, manuals, code, and so on) within a unifying framework.
RUP establishes four phases of development, each of which is organized into a number of separate iterations that must satisfy defined criteria before the next phase is undertaken: in the Inception phase, developers define the scope of the project and its business case; in the Elaboration phase, developers analyze the project’s needs in greater detail and define its architectural foundation; in the Construction phase, developers create the application design and source code; and in the Transition phase, developers deliver the system to users. RUP provides a prototype at the completion of each iteration. The product also includes process support for Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) and BEA (WebLogic) development, and supplies an HTML-based description of the unified process that an organization can customize for its own use.
