The Past, Present, and Future of Configuration Management

Abstract

Automated support for configuration management (CM) is one aspect of software engineering environments that has progressed over the last 20 years. The progress is seen by the burgeoning interest in CM, many technical papers and conferences involving CM, a large number of CM tool vendors, and new software development environments that incorporate CM capabilities. This paper is about future issues affecting solutions to CM problems. To put the future into perspective, it is necessary to discuss the past and present situation for CM. The past evolves around CM systems built in-house and supplemented with manual procedures and policies for executing the CM functions. The present consists of a better understanding of CM, the beginnings of a common vocabulary for CM, existence of many third-party CM tools and environments supporting CM, and recognition that a single CM system does not solve all CM problems and that there is a need for better understanding of CM process support. The future involves technical, process-oriented, political standardization and managerial challenges. These include the need to provide for new CM requirements, understand the effects of advances in environments, deal with governmental requirements on contractors for using certain CM capabilities, and acquire more management commitment for resources in solving the CM problems of an organization. One way to start addressing these challenges is through the definition of a CM services model that provides a conceptual framework for all CM capabilities. As CM is examined more closely in relation to software engineering, it becomes evident that advances in software technology are needed to aid advances in CM technology.

Version models for software configuration management

“…The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) has published several papers that review and survey the state of the art in SCM [Brown et al 1991;Dart 1991Dart , 1992b. Perhaps the most influential of these was written in 1991 by Feiler [1991a], who classified the models underlying SCM systems into four categories corresponding to different ways in which a user interacts with an SCM system.…”

Implementation of Software Configuration Management Process by Models: Practical Experiments and Learned Lessons

“…As far back as 1992 there was published an article [9] that introduced to main challenges of configuration management area. One of the main ideas is related to the development of a configuration management service model.…”

CCMS: A geographically distributed concurrent change and configuration management system

“…The standard definition of SCCM, taken from the IEEE standard [4,5], includes the identification of software components (i.e., configuration items), controlling both the release of a software product and changes to the product, accurate and complete status accounting (i.e., record-keeping), and a mechanism to audit and review configuration items throughout the project lifecycle. Dart [2,3] extends the definition to include manufacturing (i.e., managing the construction and the building of a product in an optimal manner), process management (i.e., ensuring the correct execution of the procedures, policies, and lifecycle model of the organization), and team work (i.e., controlling the work of and the interactions among the various developers of a product).…”