Configuration management

Top level Configuration Management Activity model

Configuration management (CM) is a field of management that focuses on establishing and maintaining consistency of a system's or product's performance and its functional and physical attributes with its requirements, design, and operational information throughout its life.[1] For information assurance, CM can be defined as the management of security features and assurances through control of changes made to hardware, software, firmware, documentation, test, test fixtures, and test documentation throughout the life cycle of an information system.[2]

Contents

History

Configuration management was first developed by the United States Air Force for the Department of Defense in the 1950s as a technical management discipline of hardware. The concepts of this discipline have been widely adopted by numerous technical management functions, including systems engineering (SE), integrated logistics support (ILS), Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), ISO 9000, Prince2 project management methodology, COBIT, Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), product lifecycle management, and application lifecycle management. Many of these functions and models have redefined configuration management from its traditional holistic approach to technical management. Some treat configuration management as being similar to a librarian activity, and break out change control or change management as a separate or stand alone discipline. However the bottomline is and always shall be Traceability.

Software configuration management

The traditional software configuration management (SCM) process is looked upon by practitioners as the best solution to handling changes in software projects. It identifies the functional and physical attributes of software at various points in time, and performs systematic control of changes to the identified attributes for the purpose of maintaining software integrity and traceability throughout the software development life cycle.

The SCM process further defines the need to trace changes, and the ability to verify that the final delivered software has all of the planned enhancements that are supposed to be included in the release. It identifies four procedures that must be defined for each software project to ensure that a sound SCM process is implemented. They are:

  1. Configuration identification
  2. Configuration control
  3. Configuration status accounting
  4. Configuration audits

These terms and definitions change from standard to standard, but are essentially the same.

Configuration management is widely used by many military organizations to manage the technical aspects of any complex systems, such as weapon systems, vehicles, and information systems. The discipline combines the capability aspects that these systems provide an organization with the issues of management of change to these systems over time.

Outside of the military, CM is appropriate to a wide range of fields and industry and commercial sectors.[3]

Computer hardware configuration management

Computer hardware configuration management is the process of creating and maintaining an up-to-date record of all the components of the infrastructure, including related documentation. Its purpose is to show what makes up the infrastructure and illustrate the physical locations and links between each item, which are known as configuration items.

Computer hardware configuration goes beyond the recording of computer hardware for the purpose of asset management, although it can be used to maintain asset information. The extra value provided is the rich source of support information that it provides to all interested parties. This information is typically stored together in a configuration management database (CMDB). This concept was introduced by ITIL.

The scope of configuration management is assumed to include, at a minimum, all configuration items used in the provision of live, operational services.

Computer hardware configuration management provides direct control over information technology (IT) assets and improves the ability of the service provider to deliver quality IT services in an economical and effective manner. Configuration management should work closely with change management.

All components of the IT infrastructure should be registered in the CMDB. The responsibilities of configuration management with regard to the CMDB are:

The scope of configuration management is assumed to include:

The benefits of computer hardware configuration management are:

Maintenance systems

Configuration management is used to maintain an understanding of the status of complex assets with a view to maintaining the highest level of serviceability for the lowest cost. Specifically, it aims to ensure that operations are not disrupted due to the asset (or parts of the asset) overrunning limits of planned lifespan or below quality levels.

In the military, this type of activity is often classed as "mission readiness", and seeks to define which assets are available and for which type of mission; a classic example is whether aircraft on-board an aircraft carrier are equipped with bombs for ground support or missiles for defense.

A theory of configuration maintenance was worked out by Mark Burgess[4] [5] [6], with a practical implementation on present day computer systems in the software Cfengine able to perform real time repair as well as preventive maintenance.

Preventive maintenance

Understanding the "as is" state of an asset and its major components is an essential element in preventive maintenance as used in maintenance, repair, and overhaul and enterprise asset management systems.

Complex assets such as aircraft, ships, industrial machinery etc. depend on many different components being serviceable. This serviceability is often defined in terms of the amount of usage the component has had since it was new, since fitted, since repaired, the amount of use it has had over its life and several other limiting factors. Understanding how near the end of their life each of these components is has been a major undertaking involving labor intensive record keeping until recent developments in software.

Predictive maintenance

Many types of component use electronic sensors to capture data which provides live condition monitoring. This data is analyzed on board or at a remote location by computer to evaluate its current serviceability and increasingly its likely future state using algorithms which predict potential future failures based on previous examples of failure through field experience and modeling. This is the basis for "predictive maintenance".

Availability of accurate and timely data is essential in order for CM to provide operational value and a lack of this can often be a limiting factor. Capturing and disseminating the operating data to the various support organizations is becoming an industry in itself.

The consumers of this data have grown more numerous and complex with the growth of programs offered by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). These are designed to offer operators guaranteed availability and make the picture more complex with the operator managing the asset but the OEM taking on the liability to ensure its serviceability. In such a situation, individual components within an asset may communicate directly to an analysis center provided by the OEM or an independent analyst.

Standards

Guidelines

Construction Industry

More recently configuration management has been applied to large construction projects which can often be very complex and have a huge amount of details and changes that need to be documented. Construction agencies such as the Federal Highway Administration have used configuration management for their infrastructure projects.[7] There have been several construction based configuration management software developed that aim to document change orders and RFIs in order to ensure a project stays on schedule and on budget. These programs can also store information to aid in the maintenance and modification of the infrastructure when it is completed.

External links

See also

References

  1. ↑ MIL-HDBK-61A CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT GUIDANCE 7 February 2001
  2. ↑ National Information Systems Security Glossary
  3. ↑ ANSI/EIA-649-1998 National Consensus Standard for Configuration Management
  4. ↑ M. Burgess, Cfengine: a site configuration engine, USENIX Computing systems, Vol8, No. 3 1995 pdf
  5. ↑ M. Burgess, On the theory of system administration, Science of Computer Programming 49, 2003. p1-46 pdf
  6. ↑ M. Burgess, Configurable immunity for evolving human-computer systems, Science of Computer Programming 51 2004, p197-213 pdf
  7. ↑ [1] Configuration Management for Transportation Management Systems Handbook
Systems Engineering
Fields
Biological systems engineering • Configuration management • Earth systems engineering and management • Enterprise systems engineering • Performance engineering • Reliability engineering • Safety engineering • Space Systems Engineering
Processes
Requirements analysis • Functional specification • System integration • Verification and validation • Design review
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Business process • System • Systems engineering process • System lifecycle • Systems Development Life Cycle
Languages
Systems Modeling Language • IDEF
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Decision making • Functional modelling • Optimization • Planning • Reliable analysis • Statistical analysis • Systems analysis • System dynamics • Systems modeling • V-Model • Work breakdown structure
Systems engineers
Wernher von Braun • Harold Chestnut • Arthur David Hall III • Derek Hitchins • Robert E. Machol • Simon Ramo • Joseph Francis Shea • John N. Warfield
Related fields
Control engineering • Computer engineering • Industrial engineering • Operations research • Project management • Quality management • Software engineering