I would like to create a web interface that allows business analysts and developers to relate software development artifacts such as test cases, requirements, tickets, etc.  The key requirement is that some of the content should reside in other systems: FitNesse for executable test cases, SVN for Word documents , Trac for tickets.  etc. Only a small fraction would be uploaded or created in Drupal.  The reason for the core requirement is that I want to maximize choice in tooling for requirements management, defect tracking, and test case management. This application provides traceability only.

The UI would allow me to do the following.

· Enter an external URL and have that entity represented as a “node” in Drupal.

· Provide a view of external and internal content (uploaded or created in Drupal) and create associations between nodes. For example, a user should be able to graphically depict a link from a Java file in Subversion to a versioned wiki page, representing a use case, in another system.

· Query on the relationships.

If I were to write this software, then I might use relationship tables to provide “isDependentUpon” relationships between two URLs. Alternatively, I might generate RDF documents to capture that association. I know that I produce software with this capability, but I wanted to avoid reinventing the wheel.

I’ve installed Drupal and read a significant amount of documentation, but I want to terminate this search if Drupal is not the right tool for this task. That being said, Drupal is very attractive for other purposes. I am new to Drupal, so I apologize if I’ve asked an obvious question.

                Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Patrick