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Change is inevitable when computer software is built and change increases the level of confusion among software engineers who are working on a project.
The art of coordinating software development to minimize confusion is called configuration management. Configuration management is the art of identifying, organizing and controlling modifications to the software being built by the programming team. A baseline is the a software configuration management concept that help us to control the change without seriously impeding justifiable change. The IEEE standard 610 defines a baseline as a specification or product that has been formally reviewed and agreed upon that thereafter serves as the basis for further development an that can be changed only through formal change control procedure. Change control combines human procedures and automated tools to provide a mechanism of change. A change request is submitted and evaluated to assess technical merit , potential side effects, overall impact on the configuration objects and system functions and the projected cost of the change. An Engineering change order(ECO) is generated for each approved change. The ECO describes the change to be made; the constraints that must be respected and the criteria for review and audit.
Configuration Audit:
ü A configuration audit asks and answers the following questions
ü Has the change specified in the ECO been made? Have any additional modifications been incorporated.
ü Has a formal technical review been conducted to assess technical correctness?
ü Have software engineering standards been properly followed
Status Reporting:
Configuration status reporting is an SCM(Software Configuration management process) task that answers the following questions what happened 2) who did it 3) when did it happen 4) what else will be affected. Configuration Status reporting plays a vital role in the success of a large software development project, when many people are involved it is likely that “the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing” .CSR(Configuration status Reporting) helps o eliminate these problems by improving communication among all people involved.
Tools for Configuration Management:
Tools for configuration management have been divided into three categories: tracking, version management, and release tools.
One of the tools is Git which is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to large projects. There are also licensed tools available to perform efficient configuration management.
The Author Suresh Menon is a subject matter expert on ERP and has worked in various capacities as Test manager, Consultant, Project Manager, Implementation manager and can be contacted at sureshmenonr1009@gmail.com for queries and Comments.
