Changes may be required to modify or update any existing solution or to create a new solution for a problem. For this purpose, a configuration management plan cmp is often used as a vehicle to create, implement and document configuration changes. Cm is a collection of competencies, techniques and tools whose purpose is to ensure the consistency of the systems requirements, functional attributes and physical properties. Configuration audit configuration control software testing. The purpose of configuration management is to identify, track and protect the projects deliverables or products from unauthorized change. Importance of configuration management in software testing. Configuration management tools are not strictly testing tools either, but good configuration management is critical for controlled testing. Maintaining an ongoing inventory of the build system enables components to be identified and tracked and lowers the risk of time consuming failures that might require several build cycles to solve. B make sure that change information is communicated among all people involved. Change and configuration management of requirements. Acceptance testing, a testing technique performed to determine whether or not the software system has met the requirement specifications. Testings role in the software configuration management. Baseline configuration management software engineering. Configuration management involves identification of cis configuration items, control of cis, status accounting, and conducting audits for configuration.
For testing, configuration management may involve ensuring the following. Configuration management is the ability to maintain control over the changes made to the test plan. This answer delves into the change management aspect of cm that. Istqb foundation level exam sample paper software testing. Good leaders in the tech space will want to know what it takes to implement it. Usaf software management guide air force software management guidebook the usaf weapons system software management guide is intended to help acquisition and sustainment organizations more rapidly and more predictably deliver capability by learning from the past, establishing realistic and executable plans, applying systems engineering processes. The more difficult the software is, the more its important to implement the changes to the software and to its supporting documents in a controlled approach. The main purpose of this type of testing is to check if the new software interferes with any other functionality of any other software which is running on the companies machines. The purpose of configuration management is to maintain control and minimize risk by keeping track of the entire development life cycle. What configuration management is and where it originated from. The primary goal is to increase productivity with minimal mistakes. Many companies may have loadsets for each department ie. Software configuration management software qa testing.
From a testing perspective, what are the main purposes of configuration management i identifying the version of software under test. The purpose of cm is to establish and maintain the integrity accurate, complete, and protected from unauthorized modification of work products. The main purpose of this test is to evaluate the systems compliance with the business requirements and verify if it is has met the required criteria for delivery to end users. It allows software tester to manage their testware and test outputs using same configuration management mechanisms.
What is configuration management in software testing. Configuration management watch more videos at lecture by. Three preconditions are defined by the syllabus to achieve the introduced purpose. How to use configuration management in context of cmmi. It is abbreviated as the scm process in software engineering. Such a perspective, while traditional, is flawed, as the goals of the qa, scm, and development processes are all closely connected. Configuration management cm is the discipline that ensures that the state of the software at any given time is known and reconstructable. Configuration management determines clearly about the items that make up the software or system. What is configuration management software testing books.
Q6 consider the following statements about early test design. Configuration management is a change control process. Software testing is the process of verifying a system with the purpose of identifying any errors, gaps or missing requirement versus the. Some cm practitioners object to placing an emphasis on testing when discussing software configuration management, believing that testing is the domain of a quality assurance organization and developers. Configuration management is an increasingly important foundation for a successful tech platform.
A baseline is a reference point in the software development life cycle marked by the completion and formal approval of a set of predefined work products. Software configuration management scm is a set of processes, policies, and tools that organize the development process. To understand this better let us take an example, a test group started testing the software, expecting to find the usual quite high number of problems. In software engineering, continuous integration ci is the practice of merging all developers working copies to a shared mainline several times a day. While each element may be invoked without the others, cm is incomplete in the absence of any of them.
Basic elements of configuration management spec india. Extreme programming xp adopted the concept of ci and did advocate integrating more than once per day perhaps as many. Software engineering system configuration management whenever a software is build, there is always scope for improvement and those improvements brings changes in picture. The objective of a baseline is to reduce a projects vulnerability to uncontrolled change by fixing and formally change controlling various key deliverables configuration items at critical.
Software configuration management scm is the task of tracking and controlling changes in the software. Metadata is a database concept that means data about the data stored in the database. This answer delves into the change management aspect of cm that we often forget due to the intense focus on the product itself. These items include source code, test scripts, thirdparty software, hardware, data and both development and test documentation. What is the meaning of baseline in software configuration. This includes listing all of the installed software, the network addresses of the computers, and the configuration of different pieces of hardware, and creating updates or ideal models that can be used to quickly update computers or restore them to a predefined. The goal of this subsystem is to manage fundamental project constraints of scope, time, cost and quality. The configuration management system is a subsystem of overall project 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. Configuration items are those items that have their own version number such that when an item is changed, a new version is created with a different version number. The author of software configuration management patterns. Configuration management cm involves the practice of processing system changes systematically with the primary intent of updating the system while maintaining system integrity. The syllabus of the istqb foundation level contains a definition of the purpose of configuration management within the context of software testing. Steve is passionate about helping teams work effectively to produce quality software.
Simply put, for software development, a baseline is a static i. The goal of scm is to improve the speed of and quality by catching errors early and enabling quick fixes when they occur. Configuration management is a topic that often confuses new practitioners. The process or method of finding errors in a software application or program so that the application functions according to the end users requirement is called software testing. Configuration identification is the process of identifying and defining configuration items in a system.
The cm plan details the methodology that the program manager pm and systems engineer will used to control program documentations and. Background the purpose of configuration management is to establish and maintain the integrity of the products components, data and documentation of the software or system through the project and product life cycle. A configuration management process that confirms the integrity of a systems product prior to delivery. Software engineering system configuration management. The overall objective of the configuration management cm plan is to document and inform project stakeholders about cm within a project, what cm tools will be used, and how they will be applied by the project. The purpose of the baseline is to have a static reference point for changes that occur once the baseline is crea. Its sole responsibility is to maintain the integrity and traceability of the software development process. Assess your comprehension of the tools and processes used in configuration management with these assessments. Configuration management cm is a systems engineering process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a products performance, functional, and physical attributes with its requirements, design, and operational information throughout its life.
In the field of sqa the term configuration management refers to a process in which qa engineers seek the best possible solution of handling the changes during the software project stages. Grady booch first proposed the term ci in his 1991 method, although he did not advocate integrating several times a day. Configuration management focuses on establishing, and maintaining, the consistency of a system or product throughout its lifetime. 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. Software configuration management in software engineering. It is an environment needed to apply change management processes to admin all changes related to the organization project. The purpose of configuration management is really to keep a detailed record of the information about the computer system and updating them as needed.
It is used primarily when software requirements change. The objective of the functional audit is to provide an independent evaluation of a software product, verifying that its configuration items actual functionality and performance is consistent with the. Effective teamwork, practical integration, he is a recognized expert in software configuration management and agile software development. Configuration management practices include revision control and the establishment of. Configuration management in software testing, configuration management.
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