Configuration Management in software testing

Objectives and Benefits

1. Improve the complete software development and maintenance cycle.
2. Make QA testing easier, reliable, and effective.
3. Remove error-prone steps from product release management.
4. Support and ease the challenges of change management and defect tracking.
5. Improve the quality and validity of code through version control.
6. Provide code roll-back if necessary, or trace related code components.
7. Maintain a history of code changes (who, what, when and why).

Responsibilities

The CM team provides the following services throughout the course of product development and deployment:

1. Implement and maintain version control in development and testing environments.
2. Prepare and configure QA servers per the specifications provided by system designers.
3. Move code into the testing environment (servers and SCD) and establish the initial (or “baseline”) code base.
4. Give the go-ahead to QA to commence testing after the code is moved.

Simplified Workflow

CM’s role in software development and deployment may be summarized as follows:

1. In preparation for QA testing, CM moves all labeled files from the development SCD to the QA servers and the QA SCD, where they are labeled again.
2. During QA testing, CM moves all new builds and defect fixes to the QA SCD and QA servers and labels them.
3. When the files are approved, CM labels and moves them from the QA SCD into the production staging servers.
4. Upon approval from project management and QA, CM promotes the final code base to production servers for deployment.
5. Any defect fixes or enhancements after the initial build will also be deployed following the above steps.

QA and Configuration Management

QA audits all CM functions for adherence to CM plans and procedures and prepares reports of its findings. QA reviews the CM plans for compliance with software CM policies and verifies that the plans include follow-up for defects.

The CM functions monitored and audited by QA include baseline control, configuration identification, and configuration control. QA assures that:

1. Baselines are established and consistently maintained for use in subsequent baseline development and control.
2. Approved changes to baseline software are made properly and consistently in all products, and no unauthorized changes are made.

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