The software configuration management process identifies the functional and physical attributes of software at critical points in time, and implements procedures to control changes to an identified attribute with the objective of maintaining software integrity and. For many hardcore agilists and other developers, the very word evokes a strong gag reflex, along with feelings of pain and frustration. With a good configuration management system, there should be a complete picture of what changed, the reason for the change and who performed it. Test conditions should be able to be linked back to their sources in the test basis, this is known as traceability. An audit is a planned and independent evaluation of one or more products or processes to determine. Software configuration management is the process whose objective is the identification of the configuration of software at discrete points in time and the systematic control of changes to the identified configuration for the purpose of maintaining software integrity and traceability throughout the software life cycle.
Requirements, configuration management and traceability for safety. Configuration management and version control automation world. In his behaviorally speaking series, bob aiello discusses handson software configuration management best practices within the context of. Cmstat hardware configuration management software solutions. Traceability ensures completeness, that all lower level requirements come from higher level requirements, and that all higher level requirements are allocated to lower level ones. Although traceability may appear to be a complex systems engineering term, it simply is. A baseline is an agreedupon description of the attributes of a product at a point in. Software configuration management in software engineering. It allows software tester to manage their testware and test outputs using same configuration management mechanisms. To store information about versions and builds of the software and testware. From a management perspective, the principles and practices of cm represent an accepted and understood foundation for implementing isocompliant. Component identification in software configuration management. Configuration management for transportation management. Even if we decide not to use a formal change control process, it would be helpful to know who made a change and why after the fact, and so requirements change history continues to be a valuable asset.
Chapter 7 configuration management and the system life cycle. What is configuration management software testing books. Software configuration management software configuration management scm is the process of identifying and defining the scis in the system and coordinating the changes made to these items a formal definition. Requirements, configuration management and traceability. The software engineering practices associated with software configuration management scm or cm offer a number of opportunities to address requirements found in the international standard, iso 9001.
The software configuration management process identifies the functional and physical attributes of software at critical points in time, and implements procedures to control changes to an identified attribute with the objective of maintaining software integrity and traceability throughout the software life cycle. The figure here depicts this level of traceability from both a top down and a bottom up view. Apr 29, 2020 what is requirement traceability matrix. Software configuration management scm is a software engineering discipline consisting of standard processes and techniques often used by organizations to manage the changes introduced to its software products.
Alm requirements traceability matrix tools orcanos. Jul 01, 2014 software configuration management scm is a software engineering discipline consisting of standard processes and techniques often used by organizations to manage the changes introduced to its software products. To develop a framework for traceability of the productive grain process, specification and implementation was performed by following the software engineering standards, with the management of software. Consequently, change and configuration management of requirements is still an important element of agile projects and the use of software tools to help with it can be greatly beneficial. Configuration management cm then, is the discipline of identifying the configuration of a system at distinct points in time for the purpose of systematically controlling changes to the configuration, and maintaining the integrity and traceability of the configuration throughout the system life cycle. Developers and others involved in the project can use scm to keep track of artifacts, including source code, documentation, problems, changes requested, and changes made. While there are many industryspecific definitions of configuration management cm, a good general meaning of cm is the application of resources, methodologies, processes, best practices, standards, governance policies, and configuration management software solutions to establish and maintain consistency and traceability between product requirements, the actual product as manufactured and serviced, and product data for all the creators and users of this information. Performing a requirements traceability analysis is an important part of the software engineering process as it ensures that all of the requirements have been adequately considered during each phase of the project, and that there arent any scope holes in the developed system due to missed requirements.
It is an open source software configuration management tool. For hardcore configuration managers and requirements and systems engineers, it is a fundamental commandment of responsible software development. It allows software tester to manage their testware and test outputs. In order for a cm program to effectively address change, cm must be included in. Software configuration management is the discipline of identifying the configuration of software at distinct points in time for the purpose of systematically controlling changes to the. Scm is the process of identifying and defining the items in the system, controlling the. Here, bob aiello discusses how to implement configuration management cm and traceability in a practical and realistic way. From the industrys first native mobile app to our advanced analytics. While scm helps manage the evolution of software artifacts and their documentation, traceability helps manage knowledge about the process of the development of software artifacts. Agile requirements traceability with accurev and rally. Slightly more formally, software configuration management scm is a software engineering discipline comprising the tools and techniques processes or methodology that a company uses to manage change to its software assets. The configuration management plan is how changes will be tracked and controlled. Why traceability matters software configuration management says.
Software configuration management scm and traceability are two prominent practices that support change management in software development. Software configuration management is the discipline of managing how software is modified and built through techniques including source code control, revision control, object build tracking, and release construction. Safetychain is a quality management system qms that helps food and beverage companies improve yield, throughput and compliance with a flexible, userfriendly software platform that captures, manages and analyzes realtime operations data. One key goal is to take repetitive manual processes like build, deployment, regression testing and infrastructure provisioning, and automate them. Sep 12, 2019 configuration management is an increasingly important foundation for a successful tech platform. Scm helps in identifying individual elements and configurations, tracking changes, and version selection, control, and baselining.
Traceability between artefacts from different domains e. How to implement cm and traceability in a practical way. There are two components to the configuration management system. Jan 29, 2020 performing a requirements traceability analysis is an important part of the software engineering process as it ensures that all of the requirements have been adequately considered during each phase of the project, and that there arent any scope holes in the developed system due to missed requirements. And not only is it easy to change, but it is unconstrained by the physical laws that serve as the guardrails of what is possible with hardware systems.
Features or characteristics of configuration management tools are. Software configuration management involves identifying the configuration of the software i. Traceability in a fine grained software configuration management. With a unique structured approach you can design, document and configure products. Team foundation is a group of tools and technologies that enable. Software configuration management plan introduction scope and intent of scm activities the primary focus of the software configuration management scm is to identify and control major software changes, ensure that change is being properly implemented, and report changes to any other personnel or clients who may have an interest.
Configuration management is a change control process. In software development, traceability is a very famous term, specially in companies implementing cmmibased process improvement. Software configuration management audits westfall team. Software configuration management is how you control the evolution of a software project.
Software configuration management and ieee standards bundle. Requirements, configuration management and traceability for safety critical software abstract. What configuration management is and where it originated from. To keep track of which versions belong with which configurations e.
Polarions software change and configuration management includes the following powerful features and flexibility. Software configuration management audits by linda westfall. With the advances in language and complexity, software engineering, involving configuration management and other methods, became a major concern due to issues like schedule, budget, and quality. Software development can often be a very complex endeavor, so it is no wonder that important details can sometimes get lost in the process. The first software configuration management was a manual operation. Requirement traceability matrix rtm is a document that maps and traces user requirement with test cases. Even if we decide not to use a formal change control process, it would be helpful to know who made a change and why after the fact, and so requirements change. Change and configuration management of requirements. Uncontrolled and undirected, imagination can quickly give rise to nightmare. Automation plays a vital role in ensuring we can release software repeatably and reliably. Imposing software traceability and configuration management for. Improving change management in software development. Abstract traceability in the agricultural production chain enables us to identify the origin and the process by which a product was subjected to its availability to the end consumer.
Usually the concept is substituted for another term, which is the traceability matrix. Traceability can be horizontal through all the test documentation for a given test level e. Software configuration management plan introduction. Feb 27, 2019 the purpose of software configuration management scm policies at your organization is to establish and maintain the integrity of software work products throughout the projects software life. Traceability between software and testware and different versions or variants. Thus a key part of configuration management is working to simplify our architecture, environments and processes to reduce the investment required to achieve the desired benefits. Configuration management cm is a systems engineering process for. Imposing software traceability and configuration management for change tolerance in software production. To develop a framework for traceability of the productive grain process, specification and implementation was performed by following the software engineering standards, with the management of software configuration. Software configuration management helps to limit this. Software is bounded only by the limits of the human imagination. Systematically control change to maintain software integrity and traceability throughout the software development life cycle. As part of the orcanos alm requirements management tool, the orcanos traceability tool is simple and powerful for traceability matrix management between any alm or qms artifact, such as requirements, test cases, fmea risk items, customer complaints, capa and more traceability management tool benefits.
Duncan, 1996, where project management, time management, software configuration management, quality management, document management, content management and knowledge management were implemented in the search. Software requirements are the focal point from which traceability to all related artifacts are established during the certification of safety critical software. One reason for this is poor management of the changes that are identified and incorporated throughout a software project. Understanding the who, what, when and why of any change. What is configuration management and how does it work. Scm practices include revision control and the establishment of baselines. Configuration management and version control automation. Bob has served as the vice chair of the ieee 828 standards working group and is a member of the ieee software and systems engineering standards committee s2esc management board.
Software configuration management aplima solutions. During development, the unit tests and changes to the source code e. The framework allows the configuration of the agricultural production chain and grain traceability. While there are many industryspecific definitions of configuration management cm, a good general meaning of cm is the application of resources, methodologies, processes, best practices, standards, governance policies, and configuration management software solutions to establish and maintain consistency and traceability between product requirements, the actual product as manufactured and. The story of changing requirements is the story of how traceability makes. In software engineering, software configuration management scm or sw cm is the task of tracking and controlling changes in the software, part of the larger crossdisciplinary field of configuration management. The software configuration management process is intended to increase clear and open communication among team members. Git is a free and open source tool which helps version control. Configuration management is also used in software development and deployment, where it is called software or unified configuration management scm or ucm. Cmm key practices for level 2 software configuration management. Palma is the worldclass solution for strategic product management. Best software configuration management it central station.
Jun 11, 2008 why traceability matters software configuration management says. Achieving perfect reproducibility and traceability to the last byte for a complex enterprise system is impossible apart from anything else, every real system has state. Software configuration management scm process and procedure. Though their overall objectives remain interrelated, their implementation varies.
248 166 817 904 735 144 1111 637 847 75 1316 819 39 1214 71 380 1320 1525 1474 1259 1036 1424 800 742 52 1522 1409 185 297 142 1614 280 1002 640 1553 1485 479 880 1268 148 909 685 786