Configuration Management Principles

Configuration Management principles are well documented but it still surprises me how many organizations get this wrong!

Configuration Management principles - Definition

Configuration Management principles generally cover the identification, recording, and reporting of IT components, including their versions, constituent components and relationships. Items that should be under the control of Configuration Management include hardware, software and associated documentation.

Given the definition above, it should be clear that Configuration Management is not the same as Asset Management, although the two disciplines are related. Asset Management is a recognized accountancy process that includes depreciation accounting. Asset Management systems maintain details on assets above a certain value, their business unit and their location. Configuration Management also maintains relationships between assets, which Asset Management usually does not.

Configuration Management principles – Basic Activities

The basic activities of Configuration Management are as follows:

• Planning. Planning and defining the purpose, scope, objectives, policies and procedures, and the organizational and technical context, for Configuration Management.
• Identification. Selecting and identifying the configuration structures for all the infrastructure's CIs, including their 'owner', their interrelationships and configuration documentation. It includes allocating identifiers and version numbers for CIs, labeling each item, and entering it on the Configuration Management Database (CMDB).
• Control. Ensuring that only authorized and identifiable CIs are accepted and recorded, from receipt to disposal. It ensures that no CI is added, modified, replaced or removed without appropriate controlling documentation, e.g. an approved Change request, and an updated specification.
• Status accounting. The reporting of all current and historical data concerned with each CI throughout its life cycle. This enables Changes to CIs and their records to be traceable, e.g. tracking the status of a CI as it changes from one state to another for instance 'under development', 'being tested', 'live', or 'withdrawn'.
• Verification and audit. A series of reviews and audits that verify the physical existence of CIs and check that they are correctly recorded in the Configuration Management system.