Configuration Management

Configuration management (CM): is a field of management that focuses on establishing and maintaining consistency of a product's performance and its functional and physical attributes with its requirements, design, and operational information throughout its life. For information assurance, CM can be defined as the management of security features and assurances through control of changes made to hardware, software, firmware, documentation, test, test fixtures, and test documentation throughout the life cycle of an information system.

ISO (International Standards Organization) definition of CM:
- Configuration management (CM) provides a method to identify, build, move, control and recover any baseline in any part of the life cycle, and ensures that is secure and free from external corruption.
- Configuration identification requires that all configuration items (CI) and their versions in test system are known.
- Configuration control is maintenance of CI’s in a library and maintenance of records on how CI’s change over time.
- Status accounting is the function of recording and tracking problem reports, change requests, etc.
- Configuration auditing is the function to check on the contents of libraries, etc. for standards compliance, for instance.
- CM can be very complicated in environments where mixed hardware and software platforms are being used, but sophisticated cross platform CM tools are increasingly available.

Traditionally configuration management has four elements:
1 - Configuration identification
2 - Configuration change control (or change management)
3 - Configuration status accounting
4 - Configuration verification and auditing
These terms and definitions change from standard to standard, but are essentially the same.

Configuration identification:
Configuration identification is the process of identifying the attributes that define every aspect of a configuration item. A configuration item is a product (hardware and/or software) that has an end-user purpose. These attributes are recorded in configuration documentation and baselined. Baselining an attribute forces formal configuration change control processes to be effected in the event that these attributes are changed.

Configuration change control:
Configuration change control is a set of processes and approval stages required to change a configuration item's attributes and to re-baseline them.

Configuration status accounting:
Configuration status accounting is the ability to record and report on the configuration baselines associated with each configuration item at any moment of time.

Configuration audits:
Configuration audits are broken into functional and physical configuration audits. They occur either at delivery or at the moment of effecting the change. A functional configuration audit ensures that functional and performance attributes of a configuration item are achieved, while a physical configuration audit ensures that a configuration item is installed in accordance with the requirements of its detailed design documentation.

Top level Configuration Management Activity Model:
(Click on Image to Enlarge)

Deliverables:
The Deliverables from the Test team would include the following:
1. Test Plan.
2. Test Case Documents.
3. Defect Reports.
4. Status Reports (Daily/weekly/Monthly).
5. Test Scripts (if any).
6. Metric Reports.
7. Product Sign off Document.