Software configuration management

In software engineering, software configuration management (SCM) is the task of tracking and controlling changes in the software. Configuration management practices include revision control and the establishment of baselines.

SCM concerns itself with answering the question "Somebody did something, how can one reproduce it?" Often the problem involves not reproducing "it" identically, but with controlled, incremental changes. Answering the question thus becomes a matter of comparing different results and of analysing their differences. Traditional configuration management typically focused on controlled creation of relatively simple products. Now, implementers of SCM face the challenge of dealing with relatively minor increments under their own control, in the context of the complex system being developed. According to another simple definition: Software Configuration Management is how you control the evolution of a software project.

Terminology

The history and terminology of SCM (which often varies) has given rise to controversy. Roger Pressman, in his book Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach, states that SCM "is a set of activities designed to control change by identifying the work products that are likely to change, establishing relationships among them, defining mechanisms for managing different versions of these work products, controlling the changes imposed, and auditing and reporting on the changes made."

Source configuration management is a related practice often used to indicate that a variety of artifacts may be managed and versioned, including software code, hardware, documents, design models, and even the directory structure itself.

Atria (later Rational Software, now a part of IBM), used "SCM" to mean "software configuration management". Gartner and Forrester Research use the term software change and configuration management.

Purposes

The goals of SCM are generally:

• Configuration identification - Identifying configurations, configuration items and baselines.
• Configuration control - Implementing a controlled change process. This is usually achieved by setting up a change control board whose primary function is to approve or reject all change requests that are sent against any baseline.
• Configuration status accounting - Recording and reporting all the necessary information on the status of the development process.
• Configuration auditing - Ensuring that configurations contain all their intended parts and are sound with respect to their specifying documents, including requirements, architectural specifications and user manuals.
• Build management - Managing the process and tools used for builds.
• Process management - Ensuring adherence to the organization's development process.
• Environment management - Managing the software and hardware that host the system.
• Teamwork - Facilitate team interactions related to the process.
• Defect tracking - Making sure every defect has traceability back to the source.

See also

• Application lifecycle management
• Change control
• Comparison of open source configuration management software
• Comparison of revision control software
• Configuration item
• Configuration management
• List of revision control software

References

• Aiello, R. (2010). Configuration Management Best Practices: Practical Methods that Work in the Real World (1st ed.). Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-321-68586-5.
• Babich, W.A. (1986). Software Configuration Management, Coordination for Team Productivity. 1st edition. Boston: Addison-Wesley
• Berczuk, Appleton; (2003). Software Configuration Management Patterns: Effective TeamWork, Practical Integration (1st ed.). Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-74117-2.
• Bersoff, E.H. (1997). Elements of Software Configuration Management. IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA, 1-32
• Dennis, A., Wixom, B.H. & Tegarden, D. (2002). System Analysis & Design: An Object-Oriented Approach with UML. Hoboken, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
• Department of Defense, USA (2001). Military Handbook: Configuration management guidance (rev. A) (MIL-HDBK-61A). Retrieved January 5, 2010, from http://www.everyspec.com/MIL-HDBK/MIL-HDBK+(0001+-+0099)/download.php?spec=MIL-HDBK-61.011531.PDF
• Futrell, R.T. et al. (2002). Quality Software Project Management. 1st edition. Prentice-Hall.
• International Organization for Standardization (2003). ISO 10007: Quality management systems – Guidelines for configuration management.
• Saeki M. (2003). Embedding Metrics into Information Systems Development Methods: An Application of Method Engineering Technique. CAiSE 2003, 374-389.
• Scott, J.A. & Nisse, D. (2001). Software configuration management. In: Guide to Software Engineering Body of Knowledge. Retrieved January 5, 2010, from http://www.computer.org/portal/web/swebok/htmlformat
• Paul M. Duvall, Steve Matyas, and Andrew Glover (2007). Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk. (1st ed.). Addison-Wesley Professional. ISBN 0-321-33638-0.

External links

• Software Configuration Management and ISO 9001 by Robert Bamford and William Deibler, SSQC
• Use Cases and Implementing Application Lifecycle Management
• Parallel Development Strategies for Software Configuration Management
• iNTCCM, iNTernational Certification for Configuration Management professionals