Configuration management or CM finds its use in a wide number
of fields including software engineering. The configuration management in the
field of software engineering is called “software configuration management” or
SCM.
What is Software Configuration Management?
- SCM over the years has proven itself to be one of the best practices for
monitoring the changes in a software system or application.
- This process has
been very effective when it comes to the identification of the physical as well
as functional attributes of a software system or application at various
intervals of time.
- This process also takes the responsibility
for taking over the systematic control of the changes to be made to the
identified attributes from the user and maintains the software traceability as
well as integrity through out all the stages of the software development life
cycle.
In this article we have focused up on the application of the
configuration management in the process of software testing. So let us see how to apply the configuration management process in software
testing.
What is Configuration Management?
- Configuration management is all about doing a detailed updating and
recording of the information that gives a description of the computer system or
network.
- As the software systems and applications being developed today
continue to rise in the measure of the complexity, the need for software
configuration management drives in.
- Software building organizations require developing
and maintaining variants of their software system or application in order to
reach out to a diversified market.
- Today almost every one is aware of the need
for a better management and control of the software products.
- Customers,
managers and developers all want to modify the requirements, technical approach
and the project approach.
- Though the modification is quite necessary as the
time passes, it is very important that the changes that are to be made are
properly controlled.
- It is important for the project leader to known about the
state of the software product that is under development and whether or not it
is satisfying the needs of the customers.
- Software configuration management can
be considered to be a support or assistant that can help a manager to manage
and control the software production in a much better way.
Under the
concept of software testing, the software configuration management is often
considered to be same as the change control which is wrong.
- Both these
processes are only related in the way that the change control forms a critical part
of the software configuration management.
- One thing that needs to be addressed
in the configuration management is the modification of the test objects should
be installed only in the test environment first and that too with the
permission of the test team lead.
- This approach of configuration management
prevents a software system or application from failing in such situations where
another version of the same object is being tested.
- After this the change
management documentation has also to be updated since it bears a very critical
relation with the testing of the software system or application.
- Plus the way
in which the changes have been dealt with should also be mentioned.
In simple
words, we can say that the evolution of the software systems or application is
controlled by the software configuration management and so it makes un- neglect-able contributes to the quality of the software system or application
and also to its delay constraints.
The software configuration management was
introduced in the field of software testing as a result of the “software
crisis” i.e., when it was realized that the programming was not everything in
software engineering.
