Introduction a tool is only as good as you use it, the saying goes. So although this is a best practice, it is highly dependent upon the proper technology. With that defined, lets talk about how it works in practice. 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 assets. Practices are grouped into four categories that govern the. Software configuration management scm process and procedure. Configuration management best practices is the essential resource for everyone concerned with cm. Good leaders in the tech space will want to know what it takes to implement it. Iso 9001 is the only source of the requirements against which compliance in software engineering practices is assessed.
Configuration management best practices electric cloud. Software configuration management an overview sciencedirect. What is configuration management and why does it matter. Changes to baselines and the release of software products built from the software baseline library are systematically controlled via the change control and configuration auditing functions of software configuration management. Software configuration management practices for extreme.
Data now assumes a common role in controlling software logic, in the form of application parameters or configuration data. Microsofts software configuration management best practices. The technology should allow you to view configurations at each promotion level based on the change status alone. Cm is the application of sound program practices to establish and maintain consistency of a products or systems attributes with its requirements and evolving technical baseline over its life. Configuration management in devops practices software testing. Software configuration management is the process of identifying and defining the software configuration items in a system. In software engineering, software configuration management is the task of tracking and controlling changes in the software, part of the larger crossdisciplinary field of configuration management. If something goes wrong, scm can determine what was. The item approval, which may be a written quality record or verbal, is a product of quality assurance. Software configuration management is a process to systematically manage, organize, and control the changes in the documents, codes, and. 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. Best practices for loadable software management and. Software development organizations can incorporate software configuration management best practices when designing and implementing a continuous integration system to further reap its benefits.
What is configuration management and how does it work. Yet this critical data often sidesteps the careful controls which are in. Software configuration management principles and best practices. Configuration management based on the national consensus standard for configuration management ansieia649. Microsofts software configuration management best practices maraia, vincent on. Software configuration management scm is a set of processes, policies, and tools that organize the development process.
Cmm key practices for level 2 software configuration management. Software configuration management best practices for. Software configuration management principles and best. 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 build best practices in software configuration.
Scm practices include revision control and the establishment of baselines. 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 audits. What is configuration management and why is it important. Configuration management is an increasingly important foundation for a successful tech platform. The release management wiki is a vendoragnostic resource collecting thousands of expert resources across 141 subtopics of release management release automation, agile practices, itilitsm concepts. As agile software development methodologies become more common and mature, proven best practices in all phases of the software development life cycle are of increasing importance. Currently he helps organizations and teams scale, adopt and apply leanagile development methods and devopsalmcm practices and tools. Applications configuration management, scm, application configuration management definition. 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. Yet this critical data often sidesteps the careful controls which are in place for source code changes. When youre producing software that is shared by different products, issues such as. There has been a lot of conversation going on around the configuration of applications, and how to manage it. Additionally, as developer preferences and enterprise.
Joe farah identifies the top ten best practices in configuration management and goes even further by listing ten more runnerup practices. What configuration management is and where it originated from. Software configuration management scm a practical guide. So generally, the configuration management is reduced to simply change management promotingrollback the change status.
By uttam narsu software configuration management best practices. A configuration management process and its supporting repository, cmdb or cms, face the challenge of overlapping and contradicting data from sources across the enterprise. List of software build best practices in software configuration manegement to help you achieve desired efficient outcome every time with less efforts. 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. This key process area covers the practices for performing the software configuration mangement function. Scm is the process of identifying and defining the items in the system, controlling the. So, here we are with our latest article on software build best practices in scm. Best practices for version management software version management and version control tools are at the heart of many companies, but the value they provide is often misunderstood, leading to poor implementations, bad practices and missed opportunities.
While the information technology information library itil 2 and the international standards organization iso 20000 3 have written extensively on best practices for configuration management, we believe there are three critical best practices for you to be aware of. Special configuration management software is available, such as bmc software s atrium and hewlett packard enterprises universal configuration management database. The identification of the configuration of software at discrete points in time and the systematic control of changes to the identified configuration for the purpose of maintaining software integrity, traceability and accountability throughout the software life cycle. Configuration management best practices allow organizations to keep track of changes in a way that allows for quick feature updates without any service disruptions. Tracing the relationship between iso 9001s requirements and cm practices begins with an examination of the guidance in iso 90003. The program manager pm is responsible configuration management cm on their project or program.
By building and maintaining configuration management best practices, you can expect several benefits such as improved network availability and lower costs. Configuration management best practices inedo blog. You might be hardpressed to pick the best ones out. It could be a very simple activity if dan would have followed the build best practices. If something goes wrong, scm can determine what was changed and who changed it. Configuration management as the name itself explains, is nothing but managing all the configurations of the environments that the software application hosts upon. What are the best practices in configuration management. Jan 25, 2018 software configuration management scm is a set of processes, policies, and tools that organize the development process. Resources about best practices for performing configuration management tasks in an organization and for using configuration management tools. Praise for configuration management best practices understanding change is critical to any attempt to manage. 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 and labview national.
As providers of software configuration management scm tools and consultants to. The downside of aircraft software is that when things do not go correctly the aircraft simply sits on the ground. It often relates to different ideas, like creating software pipelines to build and test our software artifacts. Configuration change control is a set of processes and approval stages required to change a configuration. Understand how to define scm and discuss how to accomplish it. With such experiences becoming more commonplace in the industry, the need for established software management and configuration control processes is no longer an option, it is a necessity teledyne n. Some see it as a product of configuration management, but its actually the gateway from production to configuration management, provided by quality assurance. This document provides a practical guide for integrating software configuration management disciplines into the management of software engineering projects. Software configuration management plan introduction. The goal of scm is to improve the speed of and quality by catching errors early and enabling quick fixes when they occur. Software version control is the practice of deploying software versions consisting of similar network devices. Safety critical software configuration management practices. Sep 12, 2019 configuration management is an increasingly important foundation for a successful tech platform.
Source code control can include anything from the storage and organization of folders and files on disk, to sophisticated tools for revision control and distribution of resources amongst a. Home software configuration management scm a practical guide. Each is briefly described and its applicability is noted in the context of scoperisk. Auditing is included in some definitions of configuration management. This paper identifies fundamental principles and practices essential to the successful performance of a configuration management system. 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. However, these activities reflect mostly the part of a development project that has relations to the customer. In sum, a configuration management system includes the set of policies, practices, and tools that help an organization maintain software configurations. Software configuration management in software engineering. Configuration management best practices allow organizations to keep track of changes in a way that allows for quick. Software program managers network 16 critical software. Top 10 best practices in configuration management cmcrossroads. Software configuration management is how you control the evolution of a software project.
See figure 1 for the relationship of each best practice to the key scm processes. Modern development teams deliver code frequently, and have a need to manage a software development process right in the scm. The reason why we need a build server is pretty simple. The 5 strategies in this white paper will help you increase your roi as you use your software configuration management scm effectively.
Using an scm system to store and version all source code utilizing private developer workspaces. In software engineering, software configuration management is the task of tracking and controlling changes in the software, part of the larger cross disciplinary field of configuration management. Configuration identification, configuration control, configuration status accounting and configuration audit berlack92, leon00. Software configuration management plan introduction scope and intent of scm activities the primary focus of the software configuration management scm is to identify and control major software changes, ensure that change is being properly implemented, and report changes to any other personnel or clients who may have an interest. 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. The scm practices include vision controls in the establishment.