Chapter 6: Software Configuration Management

6-1 CHAPTER 6 SOFTWARE CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT ACRONYMS CCB Configuration Control Board CM Configuration Management FCA Functional Configuration Audit PCA Physical Configuration Audit SCCB Software Configuration Control Board SCI Software Configuration Item SCM Software Configuration Management SCMP Software Configuration Management Plan SCR Software Change Request SCSA Software Configuration Status Accounting SDD Software Design Document SEI/ CMMI Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model Integration SQA Software Quality Assurance SRS Software Requirement Specification INTRODUCTION A system can be defined as the combination of interacting elements organized to achieve one or more stated purposes [1]. The configuration of a system is the functional and physical characteris - tics of hardware or software as set forth in techni - cal documentation or achieved in a product [1]; it can also be thought of as a collection of specific versions of hardware, firmware, or software items combined according to specific build procedures to serve a particular purpose. Configuration man - agement (CM), then, is the discipline of identify - ing the configuration of a system at distinct points in time for the purpose of systematically control - ling changes to the configuration and maintaining the integrity and traceability of the configuration throughout the system life cycle. It is formally defined as A discipline applying technical and admin - istrative direction and surveillance to: iden - tify and document the functional and physi - cal characteristics of a configuration item, control changes to those characteristics, record and report change processing and implementation status, and verify compli - ance with specified requirements. [1] Software configuration management (SCM) is a supporting-software life cycle process that benefits project management, development and maintenance activities, quality assurance activi - ties, as well as the customers and users of the end product. The concepts of configuration management apply to all items to be controlled, although there are some differences in implementation between hardware CM and software CM. SCM is closely related to the software qual - ity assurance (SQA) activity. As defined in the Software Quality knowledge area (KA), SQA processes provide assurance that the software products and processes in the project life cycle conform to their specified requirements by plan - ning, enacting, and performing a set of activities to provide adequate confidence that quality is being built into the software. SCM activities help in accomplishing these SQA goals. In some proj - ect contexts, specific SQA requirements prescribe certain SCM activities