Software Configuration Management and Its Contribution to Reliability Program Management

Abstract

A brief introduction describes the characteristics of configuration management and outlines the key issues of knowledge and control of content, along with the targets developed for configuration management. Software, as a relatively new discipline, is still evolving standard techniques. The special properties of software which cause difficulty in configuration management are discussed. The theme moves to the planning of configuration management in order to support the reliability program. While many organisations consider con-figuration management at the end of development, the reasoning and recommendations (based on experience) are given for applying configuration management during the entire development and life of a project. The paper shows how to implement software configuration management and describes the method used in YARD. It concentrates on the view of the system by all users, and the impact on the ability to send software to customers with confidence, keep track of reported defects, and trace the effect of modifications on all issued software. The software configuration control system is the foundation on which all reporting systems must be based. It is an entirely different matter accumulating and analysing failure reports on some object like a pressure transducer, the configuration control for which is easily identified, than a large software-based system undergoing continual evolution and correction. The use of computers to maintain configuration control discipline on software is essential and, in our experience, works.