Tower's approach

The initial, "out-of-the-box" approach employed by Razor is straightforward and open. Razor is not intended to be used "as-is" but the initial set up is intended to illustrate the possibilities.

The database

Razor maintains its information in memory via a database server and is flushed to ASCII files as updates are made. These ASCII files are read by the database server only at startup time to load its data structures. All of the files in the database are readable and easily parsed. This provides users with the ability to augment the report and analysis capabilities provided by Razor to meet site-specific needs.

Record everything

All operations which occur within Razor that modify files, issues, threads or their attributes are recorded in History files. These History files specify who performed the operation, what the operation was, when the operation occurred, the version of the object being modified and the associated commentary. This information provides a complete audit trail of the activities that have taken place on the database.

UNIX and more UNIX¹

Since the Razor database is maintained in ASCII files, it is easily parsed using standard UNIX utilities such as awk, perl, grep, etc. Access to the database is also augmented by the use of standard UNIX permissions. Permissions are controlled within Razor with the use of control files.

¹ Even under WindowsNT, Razor makes use of Posix-compliant UNIX-like features and utilities.