Software configuration management is a key software development process, and is essential for doing software. Steve berczuk is a principal software engineer with experience as a manager, scrum master and technical lead in boston, ma. A variety of agile software development methods and practices have now been around for a solid ten years and existed for at least another ten years prior. Scm is the process of identifying and defining the items in the system, controlling the. Software configuration management software configuration management scm is the process of identifying and defining the scis in the system and coordinating the changes made to these items a. The elements that comprise all information produced as a part of the software process are collectively called a software configuration. Changes may be required to modify or update any existing solution or to create a new solution for a problem. 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. Marketing creative project management product development professional services all teams.
Developmental baselinestatus of work products while in development. Configuration management software designed for cmmi. It often relates to different ideas, like creating software pipelines to build and test our software artifacts. Software configuration management scm is the discipline for systematically controlling the changes that take place during development.
Software engineering system configuration management. Software configuration management an overview sciencedirect. Configuration management cm for agile development has now been discussed since the turn of the century. It is a supporting software life cycle process that benefits several activities. Jan 10, 2019 configuration management, however, can have many connotations, depending on whos discussing it. Another configuration item could be the inventory of various automobile parts, as this would be configured early on in the development process. Understanding the policy, process activities, and the resulting artifacts that need to be.
Software configuration management in software engineering. All successful software development has some form of change, configuration and release management systems in place. Software configuration management software configuration management scm is the process of identifying and defining the scis in the system and coordinating the changes made to these items a formal definition. Clemm defines version control in the context of scm.
Determining and defining the framework that needs to be used to manage these artifacts c. There are five key steps to project configuration management. It will include defect tracking both for defects and changes typically and version. Implementation of configuration management and project change management need.
You can probably figure out that the best time to start software configuration management is at the beginning of development. Learn about configuration management cm, a continuous process of recording and maintaining consistent and reliable records pertaining to an organizations hardware and software composition. Feb 27, 2019 configuration management cm is a systems engineering process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a products performance, functional, and physical attributes with its requirements. Configuration management processes include properly identifying configuration items, controlling changes, and recording the change implementation status of the physical and functional.
While versioning is a necessary prerequisite to implementing a configuration management process, it is. The configuration management process establishes and maintains the consistency of a systems functional, performance and physical attributes with its requirements, design and operational information and allows technical insight into all levels of the system design throughout the systems life cycle. The configuration management cmmi artifacts for process improvement document contains a brief description of centre cmmi software features which cover specific and generic evidence of compliance for practices required by the cmmi for development configuration management process area. 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. Plutora blog agile release management, devops, software development configuration management. What is software configuration management and why do you need it.
Configuration management is generally referred to as an overall process of which keeps track of. Configuration management determines clearly about the items that make up the software. Software configuration management is a process independent of the development process largely because most development models cannot accommodate change at any time during development. This means that configuration management is now also considered from a process. Dec 19, 2016 configuration management process 4 introduction this document describes the configuration management process and configuration management database cmdb data dictionary that is implemented in cherwell. Nov 28, 2019 configuration management as the name itself explains, is nothing but managing all the configurations of the environments that the software application hosts upon. Software configuration management scm is a disciplined approach for change management that is applied all through a software project to implement changes without adversely impacting the quality. The software configuration management process traces changes and verifies that the. Configuration management usually spans a few areas. Early software had a physical footprint, such as cards, tapes, and other media. In the last few years, the growing understanding of software development as a collection of interrelated processes has influenced work on configuration management. Implementation of configuration management and project change management need to occur handinhand.
Business process management for software development. A project is welldefined task, which is a collection of several operations done in order to achieve a goal for example, software development and delivery. So what are the core principles of cm and how can cm help agile teams. A software development process also known as a software development methodology, model, or life cycle is a framework that is used to structure, plan, and control the process of developing information systems. May 28, 2010 what does change management mean in software development and qa. Configuration management allows a user to specify the alternative configuration of the software. To cope with this dynamic nature of software development, software engineers need to control the changes in the development process. Configuration management tools the mitre corporation. What is software configuration management and why do you.
The goal of scm is to improve the speed of and quality by. The term business process management bpm is often encountered in conjunction with six sigma and lean initiatives. Configuration management is one of the few processes that overarch all other process and service lifecycle phases in itil v3. Version control combines procedures and tools to handle different version of configuration objects that are generated during the software process.
Good leaders in the tech space will want to know what it takes to implement it. The two processes are so interrelated that project configuration management has been said to. The 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 acronym scm is also expanded as source configuration management process and software change and configuration management. What does change management mean in software development. This course provides an introduction to the study of software engineering by closely examining the software development process. Most of the time the eco process is enormously more cumbersome than software development. In software engineering software configuration management is the task of tracking and controlling changes in the software part of the larger disciplinary field of configuration management. Jun 28, 2016 is configuration management part of change management. The configuration management cmmi artifacts for process improvement document contains a brief description of centre cmmi software features which cover specific and generic evidence of compliance for practices required by the cmmi for development configuration management process. Understand how to define scm and discuss how to accomplish it. This means that configuration management is now also considered from a process point of view. Effective teamwork, practical integration, he is a recognized expert in software configuration management and agile software development.
This document is often part of the project quality management plan. While versioning is a necessary prerequisite to implementing a configuration management process, it is just a small part of the overall process. The discussion was focused on configuration management vs change management. Configuration management is a key systems and software engineering process. Ccm is a continuous process of controlling and approving changes to information or technology. Software configuration management scm is a set of processes, policies, and tools that organize the development process. Software configuration management, scm is an activity which is used at every level and every part of the process of software engineering. Software configuration management is a process to systematically manage, organize, and control the changes in the documents, codes, and. Role of configuration management in devops pluralsight. A ci is an aggregation of hardware, software or both that is designated as a unit for configuration management, and treated as a single entity in the configuration management process. With a good configuration management system, there should be a complete picture of what changed, the reason for the change and who performed it.
Configuration management cm is a systems engineering process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a products performance, functional, and. Processes involved in scm configuration management provides a disciplined. A few months ago, there was an interesting discussion on one of the linkedin forum. Traditional software configuration management process. Training and ensuring that the agreedupon configuration management process is practiced and adhered to b. It is based on the information technology infrastructure technology library itil and adapted to address vuits specific requirements. As we know, we have different environments throughout the sdlc in devops starting with unit testing, integration testing, system testing, acceptance testing and enduser testing. The software configuration management scm process is.
Software has its own need for configuration management see section 3. Change management, sometimes called configuration management, has a few different meanings in the software development community, from team changes to code changes, explains expert yvette francino. Most people in the software development industry refer to the source code management alone as configuration management. A technical and management process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a products functional and physical attributes with its requirements, design, and operational information throughout its life 1. The goal of scm is to improve the speed of and quality by catching errors early and enabling quick fixes when they occur. The job pattern of an it company engaged in software development can be seen split in two parts. Typically it refers to identification of core business processes, assignment of process ownership and definition of measures and perhaps benchmarks that indicate the health of a particular process. What is the difference between configuration management. But, there is a whole lot more to configuration than managing source codes when it comes to devops. Configuration management cm is a systems engineering process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a products performance. In software engineering, software configuration management is the task of tracking and. Pdf basic activities of software configuration management. Managing the software development life cycle process d. Computer programs both source level and executable work products that describe the computer programs targeted at both technical and end users data contained within the program or.
The list of the most popular software configuration management tools top scm tools in 2020 in software engineering software configuration management is the task of tracking and controlling changes in the software part of the larger disciplinary field of configuration management. Software configuration management procedures template. This is where we require software configuration management. Sep 12, 2019 plutora blog agile release management, devops, software development configuration management. The output of a software process is information that may be divided into three broad categories. 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, third party frameworks or packages. Any change must be monitored and assessed to determine its impact on project configuration. Software configuration management professional scmp. For many organizations, they equate the cm process with having a revision control tool in place.
There are some great open source systems out there, as well as many that will require an investment. Software configuration management scm process and procedure. He is the author of the recent book, adapting configuration management for agile teams wiley publishing, 2010, and the agile configuration management champion at software. Apr 11, 2020 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. This is the software configuration management guidebook which describes software configuration management in a way that is compatible with practices in industry and at nasa centers. 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. Version control is saving files and keeping different versions of them, so you can see the change over time. As software development progresses, the number of software configuration elements scis grow rapidly. The software configuration management scm process is looked. Configuration management determines clearly about the items that make up the software or system. Configuration management is basically the process to ensure the integrity of your product at a very, very high level, he said in an interview with this site. Apr 04, 20 you can probably figure out that the best time to start software configuration management is at the beginning of development. Software engineering software confriguration management. Several popular software development process models are examined, along with topics on the software lifecycle, quality management, and software configuration management.
Software configuration management scm can be defined as the control of the evolution of complex software systems. A few participants said that configuration management plan is part of change management plan. What is configuration management in software development. Software engineering system configuration management whenever a software is build, there is always scope for improvement and those improvements brings changes in picture. Configuration management and version control automation. In software development and management, configuration management. What is configuration management in project management. Identification this is the specification of all it components configuration items and their inclusion in a configuration management database cmdb.
Configuration management is an increasingly important foundation for a successful tech platform. He is the author of the recent book, adapting configuration management for agile teams wiley publishing, 2010, and the agile configuration management champion at software giant ca. Rather than selecting specific automated cm tools, mitre ses need to begin with requirements that take into consideration and address the roles of the technical and nontechnical elements of cm, including documentation and the traditional software configuration management elements of hardware and software. In this way, scm is a fundamental piece of all project management activities. A wide variety of such frameworks has evolved over the years, each with its own recognized strengths and weaknesses. What is configuration management and how does it work.
Configuration management is also used in software development and deployment, where it is called software or unified configuration management scm or ucm. Chapter 11 software engineering flashcards quizlet. The figure here depicts this level of traceability from both a top down and a bottom up view. It is abbreviated as the scm process in software engineering. Wthout it, the effectiveness of the rest of your processes will be in. Traditional software configuration management process ibiblio. There are two components to the configuration management system. Configuration management cm is a systems engineering process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a products performance, functional, and physical attributes with its requirements. Does your software development organization have a well defined and implemented configuration management cm process. A configuration management plan details how you will record, track, control, and audit configuration. Software configuration management is defined as a process to systematically manage, organize, and control the changes in the documents, codes, and other entities during the software development life cycle. Developers and others involved in the project can use scm to keep track of artifacts, including source code, documentation, problems, changes requested, and changes made. Software configuration management scm is the activity that helps us control the evolution of a software project. Moreira is a configuration management expert and author who specializes in configuration management as it applies to agile development.