Study of Different Aspects of Software Configuration Management

Software configuration management (SCM) is an important activity in the software engineering life cycle. Today, most of the software project teams understand the need for SCM to manage change to their software systems. Most of the companies use the software configuration management and it is essential during the process of software development as rules to control and manage the evolution of software systems. In the Software Engineering, the Software Configuration System (SCM) is used for the tracking & controlling the changes in the software. Since evolution and change is unavoidable in software systems configuration management is considered as an integral element of software development and activity maintenance. The SCM activities are change management system, version management, and then system construction and release management. This paper is the study of software configuration management, the change control, CM process, steps and tools of SCM. The purpose of this paper is to give an idea about software configuration management and how this influences the software development process

A potpourri of system configuration concepts

For many reasons, large and small installations of computers can benefit from Automated Configuration Management tools. All the processes from installation, configuration, to maintenance and updating the computers can benefit from automation for the following reasons. * Consistency across all the machines. * Timeliness in maintenance and updates * Simplify the process through the use declarative instructions. Meanwhile in software configuration management, they are examining the problems of identifying, controlling, monitoring and verifying changes in software development projects. To complicate matters, some of the reasons for software configuration management * Consistency in the source code. * Timeliness in updates to the project members so that they have what is needed. * A need to simplify documentation and development of complex projects. Subsequently, the purpose of this thesis is to understand how concepts from Software Configuration Management can aid the development of the field of System Configuration. To achieve this purpose, this thesis will start with an examination of the similiarities between SCM and System configuration. This will be followed by an examination of different key concepts in System Configuration and the following three different tools that have taken different approaches to the problem. * Cfengine * ISconf * LSconf With an understanding of how System Configuration and SCM are similar and an understanding of many of the major concepts in System Configuration, the next step is to examine some of the difference between the two fields. From there, it should be possible to see how some concepts from SCM could be applied to System Configuration. It should also be possible to examine concepts from System Configuration that could be applied to SCM

AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF LEAN AND AGILE INFLUENCES IN SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT

Based on a web based survey of 158 IT software development practitioners, mostly from different organizations, this paper examines the application of Software Configuration Management (SCM) process in adaptable software development environments. From the literature review six independent variables and five dependent variables were derived to answer the research question “how does organization size impact on the usage of SCM process in adaptable software development environments?” The six hypotheses confirmed that organization size does not impact on the usage of SCM process in adaptable software development environments. Also, all sizes of organizations consider SCM process valuable and have similar software traceability approaches with different process formalities and tools sophistications. This study helps SCM practitioners to build a better understanding of the relationships between adaptable software development environment, lean principles and practices, and the tools and technologies established to facilitate the coexistence of Agile and SCM practices

Software configuration management (SCM) support process capability maturity model

Software Configuration Management (SCM) is a concept of trying to group the changing artifacts of software development to try to manage the complexity of modern day software. This paper provides a roadmap for improving the SCM support process based on a meta-model. I developed a model that defines key practice areas that are important for the SCM support group. The model deals with the process, quality assurance and usability aspect of the SCM activities. A questionnaire to assess the state of the current process and a mapping of the questions to the model is also presented. This is the first attempt at dealing with the support aspect of the SCM part of software development.Keywords: Software Configuration Management, process improvement, meta­model, key practices, quality assurance, usability

Data from configuration management tools as sources for software process mining

Process mining has proven to be a valuable approach that provides new and objective insights into processes within organizations. Based on sets of well-structured data, the underlying ‘actual’ processes can be extracted and process models can be constructed automatically, i.e., the process model can be ‘mined’. Successful process mining depends on the availability of well-structured and suitable data. This paper investigates the potential of software configuration management (SCM) and SCM- tools for software process mining. In a validation section, data collected by a SCM tool in practice are used to apply process-mining techniques on a particular software process, i.e., a Change Control Board (CCB) process in a large industrial company. Application of process mining techniques revealed that although people tend to believe that formally specified and well-documented processes are followed, the ‘actual’ process in practice is different. Control-flow discovery revealed that in the CCB process in most of the cases, i.e., 70%, an important CCB task ‘Analysis’ was skipped

Defining software configuration management for product development

Yleensä ohjelmistokonfiguraation hallinnan käyttömalli ohjelmistokehitysprojektille on valittu tekemällä ainutkertainen soveltuvuustutkimus jokaiselle ohjelmistokehitysprojektille erikseen. Tällainen päätöksentekoprosessi on tarkka, mutta se vaatii paljon aikaa sekä resursseja. Onkin tarve pystyä helpottamaan ohjelmistokonfiguraation hallinnan käyttömallin valintaa, jotta päätöksentekoprosessista saadaan nopeampi ja kannattavampi. Tämän diplomityön tavoite on löytää tekijät, jotka vaikuttavat ohjelmistokonfiguraation hallinta prosessiin ohjelmistokehitysympäristössä, sekä luoda kysymyslista jota pystytään hyödyntämään ohjelmistokehitysympäristön ominaisuuksien tutkimisessa. Lisäksi tutkitaan miten eri Nokia Siemens Networksillä käytettävät versionhallintajärjestelmät ja ohjelmistokonfiguraation hallinnan käyttömallit tukevat löydettyjä vaatimuksia. Yhdistämällä nämä kaksi tutkimustulosta pystytään saamaan hyvä pohja kun suunnitellaan ohjelmistokonfiguraation hallinnan prosesseja uusille tai jo olemassa oleville ohjelmistokehitysprojekteille. Tutkittaessa eri ohjelmistokonfiguraation hallinnan prosesseja keskityttiin jokaisen prosessin vahvuuksiin, heikkouksiin, sekä samankaltaisuuksiin. Tämä sen takia, koska ohjelmistokonfiguraation hallinnan työkalut, sekä prosessit sisältävät ominaisuuksia, jotka soveltuvat paremmin eri ohjelmistokehitysympäristöihin kuin toiset.Normally, the usage model for Software Configuration Management (SCM) used in software development projects has been chosen by making a individual feasibility studies for each project. This way of making decisions is accurate, but it requires plenty of time and resources. There is a need to ease the selection of a SCM usage model to increase speed and profitability of decision making process. The object of this thesis is to discover the factors affecting the software configuration management process in the SW development environment and create question lists that can be exploited when investigating the characteristics of SW development. In addition, we have studied how different version control systems and software configuration management usage models used inside Nokia Siemens Networks handle these different requirements for SCM. When combining these two outcomes we have a good basis for designing new software configuration management processes for new or existing software development projects. When comparing different SCM processes, we have studied the strengths, disadvantages and similarities of each solution. This is, due to the fact that different software configuration management tools and processes have characteristics that can be applied better to one software development context than in another

A process model of maintenance with reuse: an investigation and an implementation abstract

Sixty to eighty per cent of the software life-cycle cost is spent on the software maintenance phase because software maintenance is usually more difficult than original development and legacy systems are generally large and complex. Software reuse has recently been considered as a best solution to enhance the productivity of a software development team and to reduce maintenance costs. In addition, Software Configuration Management (SCM) is a central part of software maintenance as it is associated with changing existing software and is a discipline for controlling these changes. Thus, both software reuse and SCM have been proposed for making a significant improvement in productivity, quality and cost. However, so far these two technologies have been investigated separately. In order for software reuse and SCM to produce effects by synergy, both approaches require to be introduced into a maintenance environment together. Since software reuse and SCM, and software reuse and software maintenance have many similarities in their activities, these disciplines can be integrated within a software maintenance environment. This research has therefore developed an integrated process model for 'Maintenance with Reuse (MwR)', that supports SCM for a reuse library which is actively maintained for use in a software maintenance environment. This thesis addresses an integrated process model called the MwR model and its prototype tool TERRA (Tool for Evolution of a Reusable and Reconfigurable Assets Library) that consist of a configuration management (CM) process, reuse process, maintenance process and administration of a reuse library. The MwR model and TERRA provide reusers and maintainers with many activities of these four processes such as classifying, storing, retrieving, evaluating, and propagating reusable components, including controlling changes to both reusable components and existing systems. The process model of an integrated approach has been developed and validated using Process Weaver. The TERRA tool has been implemented on the WWW so that the prototype can provide portability, traceability, integration with existing tools, and a distributed maintenance environment. The TERRA prototype has been tested and evaluated through a scenario based case study. Several scenarios based on real data have been created and used for the case study so that an organisation can apply the model and tool to its maintenance environment without many problems. The software maintenance community is facing serious problems with legacy systems, such as a ever increasing frequency of changes and backlogs, lack of integrated tools and methods, and lack of software maintenance support environments. The control and management of changes to the software components in a reuse repository are crucial to successful software development and maintenance. If the component is being used in multiple systems effects of uncontrolled change are more critical. However, reuse libraries and servers currently available have not been successful as they do not support further development or maintenance of the reusable components. In addition, most of them are not sophisticated since they have not been linked to a development/maintenance environment. The integrated model of MwR can overcome many problems that exist in software maintenance and reuse through introduction of SCM functionalities into a maintenance environment. Thus, the integration of these common activities will greatly contribute to enhancing the productivity and quality of software, and will additionally lead to reducing the costs and backlogs of changes within a maintenance environment

A MANAGED APPROACH OF INTERACTION BETWEEN AGILE SCRUM AND SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

In current age the agile software development is one of the most popular software development methodology but due the mismanagement and lack of efficient handling of agile scrum and software configuration management system our software industry is facing a high rate of failed product, keeping this as my motivation, I have designed a efficient checklist which will help the industry to organized the interaction between agile scrum process and software configuration management system in a efficient and managed way and definitely that will increase the successful project in the software industry. Index-term : Agile Scrums, Software development, Software configuration management system, Checklist, Successful project