What is configuration management in software engineering?

In information technology and telecommunications, the term configuration management or configuration control has the following meanings:

The management of security features and assurances through control of changes made to hardware, software, firmware, documentation, test, test fixtures and test documentation of an automated information system, throughout the development and operational life of a system. Source Code Management or revision control is part of this.

The control of changes, including the recording thereof, that are made to the hardware, software, firmware, and documentation throughout the system lifecycle.

The control and adaptation of the evolution of complex systems. It is the discipline of keeping evolving software products under control, and thus contributes to satisfying quality and delay constraints. Software configuration management (or SCM) can be divided into two areas. The first (and older) area of SCM concerns the storage of the entities produced during the software development project, sometimes referred to as component repository management. The second area concerns the activities performed for the production and/or change of these entities; the term engineering support is also often used to refer to this second area.

After establishing a configuration, such as that of a telecommunications or computer system, the evaluating and approving changes to the configuration and to the interrelationships among system components.

In distributed-queue dual-bus (DQDB) networks, the function that ensures the resources of all nodes of a DQDB network are configured into a correct dual-bus topology. The functions that are managed include the head of bus, external timing source, and default slot generator functions.

Configuration management is the management of software for a development group. You would utilize a tool that performs verson control on the revisions of each program to provide a form of audit and history. The concept is similiar to a library where you would checkin and checkout source code and this provides a method for fallback to the previous revision in case the current version is not working.

Configuration management is the discipline of software engineering consisting of the various standard processes and techniques used for developing and improving the software. It helps in identifying elements, tracking changes and controlling the same.

In utility engineering, utility configuration administration (SCM) is the job of monitoring and controlling adjustments in the utility. Configuration administration practices contain revision administration and the corporate of baselines. SCM concerns itself with answering the question "somebody did something, how can one reproduce it?" frequently the issue comprises not reproducing "it" identically, yet with controlled, incremental adjustments. Answering the question as a result turns right into a depend of evaluating distinctive consequences and of analysing their variations. classic configuration administration usually centred on controlled introduction of somewhat basic products. Now, implementers of SCM face the undertaking of dealing with somewhat minor increments decrease than their own administration, in the context of the complicated equipment being developed.