CCMS: A geographically distributed concurrent change and configuration management system

Abstract

In recent years, large-scale software development has involved collaboration among teams of people whose members are dispersed around the globe. Software change and configuration management (SCCM) is an essential discipline that affects all steps of the software development process, from the definition of requirements and prototyping to the final packaging and delivery of a product to a customer. Particularly in a geographically distributed environment, a good SCCM process makes it possible to produce higher-quality software and to reduce time-to-market. The concurrent change management system (CCMS) provides an out-of-the-box, customizable SCCM process framework that allows teams of project managers, architects, developers, testers, and integrators to manage product defects that have been reported, features and enhancements that have been requested, and versions of product artifacts and third-party components that provide solutions for such defects and features over multiple releases in a geographically distributed environment. The CCMS, which uses Java <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">∗</sup> /Java Database Connectivity (JDBC <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">∗</sup> ) and the database replication technologies of Oracle and Rational's ClearCase <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">∗</sup> /MultiSite, <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">∗</sup> was developed by Lucent Technologies over the past 7 years. In this paper we describe the high-level architecture and the process framework of the CCMS. The process framework will also be described with examples of the use of CCMS. © 2003 Lucent Technologies Inc.