In software engineering, software configuration management is the task of tracking and controlling changes in the software, part of the. By building and maintaining configuration management bestpractices, you can expect several benefits such as improved network availability and lower costs. Configuration management cm specialist salary payscale. It started as a technical management discipline and has been widely adopted by many other engineering disciplines, including systems engineering and software. Good leaders in the tech space will want to know what it takes to implement it. Jul 29, 2017 the four components of a configuration management system. The tailoring of this standard as it applies to this document is. Transparency is an important part of configuration management. Software configuration management is a process to systematically manage, organize, and control the changes in the documents, codes, and other entities during the software development life cycle. Service asset and configuration management it process wiki. When configuration management principles are applied using effective practices, return on investment is maximized, product life cycle costs are reduced and the small investment in resources necessary for effective configuration management.
Cm is the discipline of identifying and formalizing the functional and physical characteristics of a configuration configuration item at discrete points in the product evolution for the purpose of maintaining the integrity of the product system and controlling changes to the baseline baseline. Configuration management plan maintenance the cmp will be updated as per the wbs. In the last few years, the growing understanding of software development as a collection of interrelated processes has influenced work on configuration management. Metadata is a database concept that means data about the data stored in the database. For this purpose, a configuration management plan cmp is often used as a vehicle to create, implement and document configuration changes. Software configuration management in software engineering. Software configuration management scm is the discipline for systematically controlling the changes that take place during development. Deploy applications, software updates, maintenance scripts, and operating systems. This is the configuration management plan, document number xyz004, for the system z project. Its all about ensuring that we do not get into the pile of documents. To summarize, the entire configuration management process can be viewed as.
Software configuration management involves identifying the configuration of the software i. Wthout it, the effectiveness of the rest of your processes will be in. Software configuration management is a process to systematically manage, organize, and control the changes in the documents, codes, and. Software configuration management encompasses the disciplines and techniques of initiating, evaluating and controlling change to software products during and after the software engineering process. It services are typically made up of a bunch of individual components things like servers, software and middleware, and unique configuration. Visit payscale to research configuration management cm specialist salaries by city, experience, skill, employer and. This includes any end products that will be delivered to the customer, as well as all management products, such as the project management plan and performance management baseline. As there are so many software configuration management tools.
The purpose of iac is to have a written record of which services exist, where they are located, and under what circumstance. Software configuration management is a process independent of. Chef is a tool used for configuration management and is closely competing with puppet. A configuration management plan cm plan or cmp should be developed. This information is now obsolete and is retained online only for archival purposes. A common pitfall that many organizations fall victim to, is the lack of the proper software configuration management scm processes for their portal projects and on going support models. So, advanced planning is very important to make this work. You can gather data on server configuration and use it for analytic and modeling activities. Software configuration management scm is a software engineering discipline consisting of standard processes and techniques often used by organizations to manage the changes introduced to its software products. Configuration management cm is the ongoing process of identifying and managing changes to deliverables and other work products. The overall objective of the configuration management cm plan is to document and inform project stakeholders about cm within a project, what cm tools will be used, and how they will be applied by the project.
The software configuration management scm process is looked. Software configuration management procedures software configuration management scm procedures provides a uniform approach to scm for va software products which could be developed in house, embedded, purchased, or outsourced software. The configuration management strategy typically supports the handling of product software variants which may be caused by different sets of calibration parameters or by other causes. Configuration management is a topic that is very complex. In a previous article configuration management system a quick refresher we got an overview of the configuration management system. Within a project, the purpose of configuration management is to identify, track and protect the projects deliverables or products from unauthorised change. Project configuration management is managing the configuration of all of the projects key products and assets. These are the itil configuration management subprocesses and their process objectives configuration identification. The configuration management system is a subsystem of overall project management. Software engineering system configuration management. Its primary function is to provide automated configuration and maintenance of largescale computer systems, including the unified management of servers. Configuration management is one of the few processes that overarch all other process and service lifecycle phases in itil v3. A configuration management plan should address the responsibilities, procedures, activities, and oversight necessary to provide configuration identification, change control, status accounting and configuration audits. The configuration management plan shall describe the contractors processes for managing configuration items that are pertinent to the system.
It is abbreviated as the scm process in software engineering. Software configuration management an overview sciencedirect. Software configuration management scm is a supportingsoftware life cycle process that benefits project management, development and maintenance activities, quality assurance activities, as well as. This includes documenting how cm is managed, roles and responsibilities, how configuration item ci changes are made, and communicating all aspects of cm to project stakeholders. Why configuration management should be applied to your. Example systems include ansible, bcfg2, cfengine, chef, otter, puppet, quattor, saltstack, terraform and vagrant. This answer delves into the change management aspect of cm that we often forget due to the intense focus on the product. Configuration management is crucial in the devops model to enhance and support continuous integration. Software configuration management scm is a software engineering discipline consisting of standard processes and techniques often used by. Wthout it, the effectiveness of the rest of your processes will be in serious jeopardy. These items include source code, test scripts, thirdparty software, hardware, data and both. In this way, scm is a fundamental piece of all project management activities. In itil terminology, configuration management refers to the process of defining configuration items ci within a system and recording and reporting on the status of the cis and any requests for change, then verifying the correctness of a ci.
It ensures that the information stored in the cms is complete and the modification was done by authorized personnel only. In this blog, i will explain what is chef, configuration management and how chef achieves configuration management. Slightly more formally, software configuration management scm is a software engineering discipline comprising the tools and techniques processes or methodology that a company uses to manage change to its software. The purpose of configuration management is to establish and maintain the integrity of the products of the software project throughout the projects software life. Auditing is included in some definitions of configuration management. The configuration management plan provides details of how the system z team will manage the control of configuration items being developed under each phase. Standard 8282005, standard for software configuration management plans, was used to guide the development of this plan. Software configuration management is how you control the evolution of a software project. Configuration management is an information technology infrastructure library itil it service management itsm process to man age and control the baselines and configurations of an. Itil service asset and configuration management itil. Configuration management cm is a systems engineering process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a products performance, functional, and physical attributes with its requirements, design, and operational information throughout its life.
A configuration management process and its supporting repository, cmdb or cms, face the challenge of overlapping and contradicting data from sources across the enterprise. The purpose of configuration management is to identify, track and protect the projects deliverables or products from unauthorized change. Configuration management is the practice of tracking operational items and their attributes. Sep 12, 2019 configuration management is an increasingly important foundation for a successful tech platform. This answer delves into the change management aspect of cm that we often forget due to the intense focus on the product itself. In the configuration manager console, you can perform various client management tasks. To define and maintain the underlying structure of the cms the configuration model, so that it is able to hold all information on configuration items cis. What is configuration management and why is it important. Configuration management is a collection of processes and tools that promote network consistency, track network change, and provide up to date network documentation and visibility. Software configuration management procedures template. Cm is essential as it can help manage every part of your business whether it is the work flow for designing and manufacturing products. Cmm key practices for level 2 software configuration management. Configuration management software is designed to automate the deployment of applications in the data center and in the cloud. The item approval, which may be a written quality record or verbal, is a product of quality assurance.
Configuration management plan the overall objective of the configuration management cm plan is to document and inform project stakeholders about cm within a project, what cm tools will be used, and. Scm helps in identifying individual elements and configurations. Configuration management might choose to leverage aspects. The purpose of software configuration management is to plan, organise, control and coordinate the identification, storage and change of software through development, integration and transfer scm02. Nov 12, 2006 configuration management is a collection of processes and tools that promote network consistency, track network change, and provide up to date network documentation and visibility. Some see it as a product of configuration management, but its actually the gateway from production to configuration management, provided by quality assurance.
Jul 01, 2014 software configuration management scm is a software engineering discipline consisting of standard processes and techniques often used by organizations to manage the changes introduced to its software products. The four components of a configuration management system. Client management fundamentals configuration manager. Scm helps in identifying individual elements and configurations, tracking changes, and version selection, control, and baselining.
This article is the third in the series on configuration management. Importance of software configuration management veriday blog. It is a fundamental operations technique that captures valuable information for processes such as incident management, problem management, change management, maintenance, safety and risk management. During the project planning stage and perhaps as part of your own test plan make sure that configuration management procedures and tools are selected. The proper use and implementation of configuration management can guarantee control, accuracy, traceability, restorability, consistency, efficiency and versioning. It is an environment needed to apply change management. What is configuration management software testing books. It can also even allow changes to system management. Configuration management processes are closely integrated with incident management, problem management, change management, and release management. Configuration management can be used to maintain os configuration files. Processes involved in scm configuration management provides a disciplined. Scm practices include revision control and the establishment of baselines.
Programme and project configuration management department. Configuration management resources describes the cm organizational products, tools, support environment, personnel, and training. Special configuration management software is available, such as bmc software s atrium and hewlett packard enterprises universal configuration management database. Identify and document configuration items according to the configuration management. B make sure that change information is communicated among all people involved. What is configuration management and how does it work. Configuration management cm a support process area at maturity level 2 purpose the purpose of configuration management cm is to establish and maintain the integrity of work products using configuration identification, configuration control, configuration status accounting, and configuration. The primary goal of cfm is to identify, maintain, and verify information on it assets and configurations in the.
Where we do not know which one is the right version and which document is compatible with the other. Configuration management software is one of a constellation of devops categories designed to facilitate cooperation between it and development. Free downloadable configuration management plan templates. The goal of this subsystem is to manage fundamental project constraints of scope, time, cost and quality. Implementation of configuration management and project change management need to occur handinhand. Software configuration management encompasses the disciplines and techniques of initiating, evaluating and controlling change to software products during and after a software project standards approved by ansi ieee 828. The purpose of configuration management is to maintain control and minimize risk by keeping track of the entire development life cycle. This includes any end products that will be delivered to the customer, as well as all. Software configuration management scm is a supporting software life cycle process that benefits project management, development and maintenance activities, quality assurance activities, as well as the customers and users of the end product. Configuration management cfm is one of the components in the itil service support area. Configuration management determines clearly about the items that make up the software or system.
Why configuration management should be applied to your business. Configuration management schedules describes the general cm activities schedule. Feb 27, 2019 the purpose of software configuration management scm policies at your organization is to establish and maintain the integrity of software work products throughout the projects software life. Configuration management manages configurable items. Introduction this was the software configuration management frequently asked questions faq file for the newsgroup comp.
Configuration management frequently asked questions. What configuration management is and where it originated from. Administering software configuration management software configuration management is a project function with the goal to make technical and managerial activities more effective software configuration management can be administered in several ways. Configuration management might choose to leverage aspects of iac in order to achieve the full understanding of all the technology assets a company owns. The configuration manager client application is installed with the configuration manager client software. Configuration management is a change control process. It allows software tester to manage their testware and test outputs using same configuration management mechanisms. This guide defines and explains what software configuration management is, provides guidelines on how to do it, and defines in detail what a software configuration management plan should contain. Software configuration management is a process independent of the development process largely because most development models cannot accommodate change at any time during development. Configuration management is a discipline that gives precise control over the projects assets allowing managers to. Maintaining an ongoing inventory of the build system enables. Apr 11, 2020 what is software configuration management. Configuration management has its roots in the us department of defence in the 1950s. These items include source code, test scripts, thirdparty software, hardware, data and both development and test documentation.
Software configuration management scm process and procedure. Any change must be monitored and assessed to determine its impact on project configuration. In software engineering, software configuration management scm or sw cm is the task of tracking and controlling changes in the software, part of the larger crossdisciplinary field of configuration management. What is configuration management in software testing. Configuration management cm is a set of processes and procedures that ensures that your business system is understood and works correctly. Data collection software makes it easier for it teams to do configuration management. What is configuration management in project management.
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