Software Configuration Management: Reto Bonderer

SWEED
Software Configuration Management
Reto Bonderer
reto.bonderer@fh-htwchur.ch
University of Applied Sciences Chur
with minor modifications by M. Kropp
University of Applied Sciences Solothurn NWCH
Configuration Management V 1.1.0 SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 1

SWEED
Learning Goals
V The participant
X knows why configuration management is important
X knows what version, release and change
management is about
X knows how to plan configuration management
X understands how tools support the configuration
management processes and can decide whether a
tool is feasible for a particular project
Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 2

SWEED
Content
V Version and release management

V Change management
V Build management
V Configuration management planning
V Configuration identification
V Subcontractor control and inclusion of COTS
parts
V Tool support

SWEED
References
O Ian Sommerville: Software Engineering, 6th edition, Pearson

Education 2001
O K. Frühauf, J. Ludewig, H. Sandmayr: Software – Projekt-
management und – Qualitätssicherung, 4. durchgesehene
Auflage, vdf Zürich 2002 (in German)
O IEEE Software Engineering Standards Collection, 1999
edition, IEEE Press, www.ieee.org
O www.cvshome.org
O www.sei.cmu.edu

SWEED
Acronyms
V CCB Configuration Control Board

V CM Configuration Management
V CMM Capability Maturity Model
V COTS Commercial Off The Shelf
V IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
V SCM Software CM
V SCMP SCM Plan
V SCR Software Change Request

SWEED
Most Important Software Processes
Software Project Management
Requirements Software
Management Quality
Assurance
Software Project
Software Configuration Management

SWEED
Symptoms of poor CM
V Bugs that have been corrected reappear

V Previous releases of software cannot be rebuilt
V Previous releases of software cannot be found
V Files get lost
V Files are “mysteriously” changed
V The same or similar code exists multiple times
in different projects
V Two developers accidentally change the same
file concurrently
SWEED
Benefits of an appropriate CM
V Systems are built “automatically” and faster

V Reintroducing already corrected bugs is avoided
Î better reputation of company
V Concurrent development is simplified
V Appropriate CM is a prerequisite for distributed
development

SWEED
But: There’s No Free Lunch
V There are risks with:

X Business
O Cost (license fees, training, administration)
O Culture change
X People
O Some prefer a different tool
O Resistance to introduce CM (different reasons)
O Cheating (people work around a tool)
X Technology
O Access and security
O Scalability

SWEED
Potential Product Version Tree
Linux version
French version
Core NT version English version
German version
Mac version

SWEED
What is SCM?
Software configuration management (SCM)

is responsible to establish and maintain the
integrity of the products of the software project
throughout the software life cycle.
This includes identifying configuration items,

controlling changes and recording and reporting
the change implementation status.

SWEED
What is a Configuration?
A configuration
is the functional and physical characteristics of
hardware or software as set forth in technical
documentation or achieved in a product.
IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology

SWEED
Example: Configurations
Cfg 1 Cfg 2 Cfg 3 Cfg 4
file 1 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7
file 2 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4
file 3 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9
file 4 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9

SWEED
What is a Configuration item?
A configuration item
is an aggregation of hardware, software, or
both, that is designated for configuration
management and treated as a single entity in
the configuration management process.

SWEED
Example: Driver configuration of a PC

SWEED
Exercise: Car manufacturer
Consider a car manufacturer

X What are the configurations a car manufacturer has
to deal with?
X How does he know how a customer-specific car is
built?
X If an important part (i.e. the brakes) has a bug in a
whole production lot: in which cars must the part be
replaced?

SWEED
CM Activities
V Version and release management

V Change management
V System building
V CM planning

SWEED
Version and Release Management
1.5
1.4
1.3 1.3
1.2 1.2 1.2
1.1 1.1 1.1
1.0 1.0 1.0
gui.c_v main.c_v io.c_v

SWEED
Baseline
A specification or product that has been formally

reviewed an agreed upon, that thereafter serves
as the basis for further development, and that can
be changed only through formal change control
procedures.

SWEED
Version
An initial release or re-release of a computer

software configuration item, associated with a
complete compilation or recompilation of the
computer software configuration item.

SWEED
Release
The formal notification and distribution of an

approved version.
IEEE Standard for Software Configuration Management Plans

SWEED
Variant
A variant is an instance of a system which is

functionally identical but non-functionally
distinct from other instances of a system.
Ian Sommerville
Examples:
X Natural language "versions" (English, French, ...)
X "Versions" for different operating systems
X Customer specific "versions"

SWEED
Release Identification
V Releases are usually identified with a label

consisting of three numbers, separated by a dot.
X.Y.Z
V The following conventions usually apply:
O X represents a major new version of a system (starts with 1)
O Y represents the update level with minor functional changes
(starts with 0)
O Z is used for bug fix versions (starts with 0)

SWEED
Release Management
V Releases must incorporate changes forced on

the system by errors discovered by users and
by hardware changes
V They must also incorporate new system
functionality
V Release planning is concerned with when to
issue a system version as a release

SWEED
System Releases
V Not just a set of executable programs

V May also include
X Configuration files
X Data files needed for system operation
X Installation program or shell script
X Electronic and paper documentation
X Packaging and associated publicity
V Systems are now normally released on DVD,
CD-ROM or as downloadable installation files
from the web
SWEED
Release Decision Making
V Preparing and distributing a system release is

an expensive process
V Factors such as the technical quality of the
system, competition, marketing requirements
and customer change requests should all
influence the decision of when to issue a new
system release

SWEED
Exercise: Version and Release Mgmt
V Discuss whether Windows 98 is new version or

just a revision of Windows 95.
V A software company selling an Office suite

wants to ship a new release every 18 months.
What is the impact of this fact on the
development process?

SWEED
Version Management Tools
V Automatic version and release identification

V Efficient storage management.
X System stores the differences between versions
rather than all the version code
V Change history recording
V Independent development
X Parallel working on the same version is handled,
either by exclusive locking (most tools) or by a so-
called unreserved check out model (CVS).

SWEED
Working Environment
Repository
Check out Server Check in
Sandbox

SWEED
Content of an Archive
Workfile (in Sandbox)
MAIN.C
Version 1.2 of MAIN.C
Author: N. Wirth
Check in Last modified: 2002-08-15
Description of changes: Ported to DB version 2.0
Archive
Version 1.2
Author: B. Kernighan
Version 1.1 Last modified: 2001-07-26
Description of changes: Database integrated

Version 1.0
MAIN.C_V
Author: D. Knuth
Last modified: 1993-10-21
Description of changes: File created

SWEED
Concurrent Versions System (CVS)
V Open Source
V www.cvshome.org
V Local or C/S access
V Commandline based
V GUIs are available
X WinCVS
X jCVS
V May be integrated into
other tools
X e.g. Together CASE tool

SWEED
CVS Commands for Users
V Check out files

O cvs checkout filename
V Check in files
O cvs commit filename
V Clean up the working directory

O cvs release directoryname
V Add files to repository

O cvs add filename
V Remove files from repository

O cvs remove filename

SWEED
CVS Commands for Users (cont'd)
V Show the differences between two versions

O cvs diff filename
V Show the log of changes to a file

O cvs log filename
V Show the history of each line of a file

O cvs annotate filename

SWEED
CVS Commands for Administrators
V Create a CVS repository

O cvs -d directoryname init

SWEED
Exercise: CVS
V Copy the provided CVS repository to where you

like to have it.
V Create your sandbox.
V Now check the whole repository out to your
sandbox.
V Try some CVS commands
X See the log of the files, change the files, check them
back in, see the log of the files now, create a new file,
add it to the repository, ...

SWEED
Exercise: CASE Tool using CVS
V Take a class diagram you created with Together

Control Center and put it under version control.
V Do some changes and check them in again.
V Try to get the former version back out of the
repository.

SWEED
Change Management

SWEED
Change Management
V Software systems are subject to continual

change requests
X From users
X From developers
X From market forces
V Change management is concerned with
managing of these changes and ensuring that
they are implemented in the most cost-effective
way

SWEED
Promotion Model
Production
Beta
Quality Assurance
Development
V Each life cycle stage is working with a defined baseline.

V Changes must only be made in the Development stage.
V No Change management in the Development stage.
V Baselines are promoted to the next level after (formal)
approval by an authorized body.
SWEED
Change Management Process
Submit change Analyse change No

Valid?
request request
Yes
Assess
Submit request Record request
implementation
to CCB in database
and cost
No Reject change
Accepted?
request
Yes
Implement and Create new

test change release

SWEED
Change Request Form
V Definition of a change request form is part of the

CM planning process (may be paper or
electronic)
V Records change required, requestor of change,
reason why change was requested and
urgency of change
V Records change evaluation, impact analysis,
change cost and recommendations (system
maintenance staff)

SWEED
Change Tracking Tool
V A major problem in change management is

tracking change status
V Change tracking tools keep track the status of
each change request and automatically ensure
that change requests are sent to the right
people at the right time.
V Integrated with e-mail systems allowing
electronic change request distribution

SWEED
A sample problem statistics
60
58
56
54
52
50
48
46
44 Priority 4
42
40 Priority 3
38
36
Priority 2
34 Priority 1
32
30
28
26
24
22
20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Okt 99 Nov 99 Dez 99 Jan 00 Feb 00

SWEED
Configuration Control Board (CCB)
V Also called Change Control Board

V Changes should be reviewed by an external
group who decide whether or not they are cost-
effective from a strategic and organisational
viewpoint rather than a technical viewpoint
V Should be independent of project responsible
for system.
V May include representatives from client and
contractor staff

SWEED
Revision History
V Record of changes applied to a document or

code component
V Should record, in outline, the change made, the
rationale for the change, who made the change
and when it was implemented
V May be included as a comment in code. If a
standard prologue style is used for the
derivation history, tools can process this
automatically

SWEED
Change Management Tools
V Change management is a procedural process

so it can be modelled and integrated with a
version management system
V Change management tools
X Form editor to support processing the change
request forms
X Workflow system to define who does what and to
automate information transfer
X Change database that manages change proposals
and is linked to a VM system

SWEED
Exercise: Change Management
V Design a entity-relational model of a

configuration database which records
information about system components versions,
releases and changes
V Define attributes and queries that might be
helpful for a CM database user

SWEED
Building a System

SWEED
System Building
V The process of compiling and linking software

components into an executable system
V Different systems are built from different
combinations of components
V Different releases are built from different
versions of components
V Invariably supported by automated tools that are
driven by ‘build scripts’

SWEED
System Building
V Building a large system is computationally

expensive and may take several hours
V Hundreds of files may be involved
V System building tools may provide
X A dependency specification language and interpreter
X Distributed compilation
X Derived object management
X Integration with version management tools

SWEED
Integrated Build Process
program.exe
Link
gui.obj main.obj io.obj
Compile
gui.c main.c io.c
Check out
1.3 1.5 1.2
1.2 1.4 1.1
1.1 1.3 1.0
1.0 1.2 io.c_v
gui.c_v 1.1
1.0
main.c_v

SWEED
Daily System Building
V It is easier to find problems that stem from

component interactions early in the process
V This encourages thorough unit testing -
developers are under pressure not to ‘break the
build’
V A stringent change management process is
required to keep track of problems that have
been discovered and repaired

SWEED
System Building Problems
V Do the build instructions include all required

components?
V Is the appropriate component version
specified?
V Are all data files available?
V Is the system being built for the right platform?
V Is the right version of the compiler and other
software tools specified?

SWEED
Tool Support
V Make
X Comes with many
development environments
or from GNU
X www.gnu.org
V Ant
X Open source tool from the
apache project
X Based on XML
X Independent of operating
systems
X jakarta.apache.org/ant

SWEED
Exercise: System Building
V Use a make tool (e.g. GNU make) and define a

build script for a small development project.

SWEED
Configuration Management Planning

SWEED
CM Standards
V CM should always be based on a set of standards

which are applied within an organisation
V Standards should define how items are identified,
how changes are controlled and how new versions
are managed
V Standards may be based on external CM standards
V IEEE standards are recommended
O IEEE Standard for Software Configuration Management
Plans, IEEE Std 828-1998
O IEEE Guide to Software Configuration Management, IEEE
Std 1042-1987

SWEED
Products of the Software Process
V Documents
– Specifications
– Manuals
V Designs
V Source code
V Test data
V Tools
ÎAll may have to be managed

SWEED
Configuration Management Planning
V Starts during the early phases of the project

O Recommendation: Plan before you start working
V Must define the documents or document classes

which are to be managed (formal documents)
V The plan shall be applied to the type and size of

the project

SWEED
What the CM Plan Defines...
V Items to be managed (Configuration items)

V Identification of items (naming scheme)
V Responsibilities for the CM procedures and
creation of baselines
V Policies for change control and version mgmt
V CM records which must be retained
V Tools to be used and how to use them
V CM database to record configuration information

SWEED
What the CM Plan May Define...
V Configuration status accounting

X Configuration auditing
X Release process
V Subcontractor / Supplier management
X How to interact with subcontractors / suppliers

SWEED
Configuration Item Identification
V Each configuration item must unambiguously be

identified
V A naming scheme shall be defined
????

SWEED
Elements of a CI Identification
• Unique identifier
• Version number
• Descriptive name
• (Check sum)

SWEED
Hierarchical Naming Scheme
V A hierarchical scheme with multi-level names is

probably the most flexible approach
PPP.SSS.TTT.nnnn
Serial number
Document type
Subsystem
Project

SWEED
Linear Naming Scheme
V A linear scheme may be used if the registration

is decentralised
PPP.nnnnnn
Serial number
Project

SWEED
Content according to IEEE Std 828
Introduction SCM Schedules

Describes the Plan's purpose, (When?) Identifies the required
scope of application, key coordination of SCM activities
terms, and references with the other activities in the
SCM Management project
(Who?) Identifies the SCM Resources
responsibilities and authorities (How?) Identifies tools and
for accomplishing the planned physical and human resources
activities required for execution of the
SCM Activities Plan
(What?) Identifies all activities SCM Plan Maintenance
to be performed in applying to Identifies how the Plan will be
the project kept current while in effect

SWEED
Exercise: Create SCM Plan
You already may have worked on a student

project. If not, consider a small experimental
software project.
Create a Software Configuration Management

Plan (SCMP) for this project.

SWEED
Key Points
V Configuration management is the management

of system change to software products
V A formal document naming scheme should be
established and documents should be managed
in a database
V The configuration data base should record
information about changes and change requests
V A consistent scheme of version identification
should be established using version numbers,
attributes or change sets
SWEED
Key Points (cont'd)
V System releases include executable code, data,

configuration files and documentation
V System building involves assembling
components into a system
V CASE tools are available to support all CM
activities
V CASE tools may be stand-alone tools or may be
integrated systems which integrate support for
version management, system building and
change management
SWEED
Outlook
V What's missing in this module

X Branching of versions
X Merging of versions
X Managing configurations that consist of firmware and
hardware items, too

Software Configuration Management: Reto Bonderer

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Software Configuration Management: Reto Bonderer

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

SWEED

Software Configuration Management

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 1

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 2

V Version and release management

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 3

O Ian Sommerville: Software Engineering, 6th edition, Pearson

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 4

V CCB Configuration Control Board

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 5

Software Project Management

Software Configuration Management

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 6

V Bugs that have been corrected reappear

V Systems are built “automatically” and faster

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 8

V There are risks with:

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 9

Core NT version English version

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 10

Software configuration management (SCM)

This includes identifying configuration items,

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 11

IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 12

Cfg 1 Cfg 2 Cfg 3 Cfg 4

file 1 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7

file 2 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4

file 3 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9

file 4 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 13

IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 14

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 15

Consider a car manufacturer

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 16

V Version and release management

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 17

Version and Release Management

1.2 1.2 1.2

1.1 1.1 1.1

1.0 1.0 1.0

gui.c_v main.c_v io.c_v

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 18

A specification or product that has been formally

IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 19

An initial release or re-release of a computer

IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 20

The formal notification and distribution of an

IEEE Standard for Software Configuration Management Plans

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 21

A variant is an instance of a system which is

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 22

V Releases are usually identified with a label

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 23

V Releases must incorporate changes forced on

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 24

V Not just a set of executable programs

V Preparing and distributing a system release is

Configuration Management V 1.1.0 © SWEED 2002, R. Bonderer, M. Kropp 26

V Discuss whether Windows 98 is new version or