Configuration Management

Topics Covered Objectives To explain the importance of software configuration management (CM) Topics covered Configuration management planning Change management Version and release management System building

Configuration Management-Why … It is used to track the system after change as it require, change occur due to following reasons. To make system cross-platform Accommodating new functionality Tailored for particular user requirements

Objective of CM Configuration management is to control the effort and costs involved in making changes to the system. It contains the development & application of procedures and standards to manage and evolving software product When released to CM, software systems are sometimes called baselines as they are a starting point for further development May be seen as part of a more general quality management process

Configuration Management Planning

CM Planning Defines the types of documents to be managed and a document naming scheme Defines who takes responsibility for the CM procedures and creation of “baselines” Defines policies for change control and version management Defines the CM records which must be maintained

Configuration Item Identification Large projects typically produce many documents which must be uniquely identified Some of these documents must be maintained for the lifetime of the software Document naming scheme should be defined so that related documents have related names. A hierarchical scheme with multi-level names is probably the most flexible approach

The Configuration Database All CM information should be maintained in a configuration database This should allow queries about configurations to be answered Who has a particular system version? What platform is required for a particular version? What versions are affected by a change to component X? How many reported faults in version T? The CM database should preferably be linked to the software being managed

Change Management Software systems are subject to continual change requests From users From developers From market forces Change management is concerned with keeping track of these changes and ensuring that they are implemented in the most cost-effective way.

Change Tracking Tools … A major problem in change management is tracking change status Change tracking tools track the status of each change request Automatically ensure that change requests are sent to the right people at the right time Integrated with E-mail systems allowing electronic change request distribution

Version & Release Management Invent identification scheme for system versions Plan when new system version is to be produced Ensure that version management procedures and tools are properly applied Plan and distribute new system releases

Versions/ Variants/ Releases Version An instance of a system which is functionally distinct in some way from other system instances Variant An instance of a system which is functionally identical but non-functionally distinct from other instances of a system Release An instance of a system which is distributed to users outside of the development team.

Version Identification Procedures for version identification should define an unambiguous way of identifying component versions Three basic techniques for component identification Version numbering Attribute-based identification Change-oriented identification

Version Management Tools Version and release identification Systems assign identifiers automatically when a new version is submitted to the system Storage management. System stores the differences between versions rather than all the version code Change history recording Record reasons for version creation Independent development Only one version at a time may be checked out for change Parallel working on different versions

Release Management Releases incorporate changes forced on the system by errors discovered by users and by hardware changes They also incorporate new system functionality Release planning is concerned with when to issue a system version as a release

System Releases Not just a set of executable programs May also include Configuration files defining how the release is configured for a particular installation Data files needed for system operation An installation program or shell script to install the system on target hardware Electronic and paper documentation Packaging and associated publicity Systems are now normally released on CD-ROM or as downloadable installation files from the Web

Release Problems Customer may not want a new release of the system They may be happy with their current system as the new version may provide unwanted functionality Release management must not assume that all previous releases have been accepted All files required for a release should be re-created when a new release is installed

Release Creation Release creation involves collecting all files and documentation required to create a system release Configuration descriptions have to be written for different hardware and installation scripts have to be written The specific release must be documented to record exactly what files were used to create it This allows it to be re-created if necessary

System Building The process of compiling and linking software components into an executable system Different systems are built from different combinations of components Invariably supported by automated tools that are driven by ‘build scripts’

System Building Problems Do the build instructions include all required components? When there are many hundreds of components making up a system, it is easy to miss one out This should normally be detected by the linker Is the appropriate component version specified? A more significant problem. A system built with the wrong version may work initially but fail after delivery Are all data files available? The build should not rely on 'standard' data files Standards vary from place to place

Contd. Are data file references within components correct? Embedding absolute names in code almost always causes problems as naming conventions differ from place to place Is the system being built for the right platform Sometimes must build for a specific OS version or hardware configuration Is the right version of the compiler and other software tools specified? Different compiler versions may actually generate different code and the compiled component will exhibit different behaviour

System Building Tools Building a large system is computationally expensive and may take several hours Hundreds of files may be involved System building tools may provide A dependency specification language and interpreter Tool selection and instantiation support Distributed compilation Derived object management

Key Points Configuration management is the management of system change to software products A formal document naming scheme should be established and documents should be managed in a database The configuration database should record information about changes and change requests A consistent scheme of version identification should be established using version numbers, attributes or change sets System releases include executable code, data, configuration files and documentation System building involves assembling components into a system

Configuration Management

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Configuration Management