To configure products so that they can provide resources for other products to link to, you must have administrative privileges on the servers configured as providers.

Configuring a product as a provider makes its resources available for other applications to consume. You configure servers with a consumer key and consumer secret in each product, and designate applications as friends so that they can make outbound requests to each other. For example, you can create the keys in IBM Rational Team Concert (as a provider) for System Architect (as a consumer) to link to its resources.

The authentication method used between a provider and consumer is Open Authentication (OAuth).

The configuration process might vary between products if you have to manage firewalls or other network security measures to access servers.