Role of configuration management in a software

An IT asset may represent a piece of software, or a server, or a cluster of servers. Software configuration management is a systems engineering process that tracks and monitors changes to a software systems configuration metadata. Configuration management helps engineering teams build robust and stable systems through the use of tools that automatically manage and monitor updates to configuration data.

Complex software systems are composed of components that differ in granularity of size and complexity. For a more concrete example consider a microservice architecture. Each service in a microservice architecture uses configuration metadata to register itself and initialize. Some examples of software configuration metadata are:. Imagine numerous post-it notes with passwords and URLs blowing around an office. Git is a fantastic platform for managing configuration data. Moving configuration data into a Git repository enables version control and the repository to act as a source of truth.

Version control also solves another configuration problem: unexpected breaking changes. Managing unexpected changes through the use of code review and version control helps to minimize downtime. Configuration values will often be added, removed, or modified. Without version control this can cause problems.

One team member may tweak a hardware allocation value so that the software runs more efficiently on their personal laptop. When the software is later deployed to a production environment, this new configuration may have a suboptimal effect or may break. Version control and configuration management solve this problem by adding visibility to configuration modifications.

When a change is made to configuration data, the version control system tracks it, which allows team members to review an audit trail of modifications. Version control applied to the configuration can be rapidly reverted to a last known stable state.

Configuration data has historically been hard to wrangle and can easily become an afterthought. Traditional and small scale system administration is usually done with a collection of scripts and ad-hoc processes. Configuration data can be overlooked at times, but it is critical to system operation.

The rise of cloud infrastructures has led to the development and adoption of new patterns of infrastructure management. Complex, cloud-based system architectures are managed and deployed through the use of configuration data files. These new cloud platforms allow teams to specify the hardware resources and network connections they need provisioned through human and machine readable data files like YAML.

The data files are then read and the infrastructure is provisioned in the cloud. This pattern is called infrastructure as code IaC. In the early years of internet application development, hardware resources and systems administration were primarily performed manually.

System administrators wrangled configuration data while manually provisioning and managing hardware resources based on configuration data. Configuration management is a key part of a DevOps lifecycle.

DevOps configuration is the evolution and automation of the systems administration role, bringing automation to infrastructure management and deployment. DevOps configuration also brings system administration responsibility under the umbrella of software engineering.

Enterprises today utilize it to empower software engineers to request and provision needed resources on demand. This removes a potential organizational dependency bottleneck of a software development team waiting for resources from a separate system administration team. This same flow can be applied to configuration changes.

A perfect example of this process is a GitOps workflow. Configuration management enables agile teams to clearly triage and prioritize configuration work. Examples of configuration work are chores and tasks like:. Develop and retain your best employees in a competitive job market through continuous learning benefits. Unsure what's right for your company? Book a live demo with a Contact Customer Success Manager.

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Need assistance? Contact an Contact Academic Advisor. A place to improve knowledge and learn new and In-demand IT skills for career launch, promotion, higher pay scale, and career switch. In this drastically evolving world, having a profession of your choice is a luxury not everyone has. If you love IT and have what it takes to thrive in the IT world, consider configuration management as your field. Configuration Manager is a job designation that comes with a potential to change your future.

It is ideal for IT professionals who want a good salary package and a stable career path. Configuration management is the discipline that ensures every company-owned software or hardware is in the record and is being tracked all the time. It ensures all the future planning and changes regarding these assets are known and are being updated in the records regularly. We can say that configuration management is the same as having an always up to date inventory of your technological assets, and on a single platform.

This job is not uncommon in most of the industries, but the primary carrier of this job is technology-based businesses. These firms need configuration managers even to run the daily tasks of the organization. The manager usually has the responsibility of ensuring the day to day tasks according to the configuration management plan. Some day to day functions executed by configuration managers involve operating custom applications and software to make sure the smoothness of builds and deployments.

This usually causes the configuration manager to work with multiple departments and perform tests and trails on the legacy and modern systems at the same time. The issues that get discovered are reported and fixed. Usually, all the work is done in teams, but individual accountability is also implemented for accuracy and preparation.

While applying for a job as a configuration manager, sometimes you may feel there are no specific educational requirements mentioned.

But usually qualifying for an entry-level job that will eventually lead to configuration manager, you are expected to have at least a bachelor's degree in the relevant field. To be a configuration manager, the experience that you need to have varies company to company, but mostly, a proven record of work as a system administrator is the minimum requirement.

Knowledge of the technologies and procedures of the firm's current systems is also a must. The job usually requires security clearance from your previous employer. Certification holders are generally given preference while hiring new people. Some firms may make it mandatory to have these certifications. One of the important certifications is 70 certification. It is a certification to analyze data with Microsoft Power BI. Manually identifying systems that require attention, determining remediation steps, prioritizing actions, and validating completion are too complicated to perform in large environments.

Configuration management systems let you consistently define system settings, as well as build and maintain those systems according to those baseline settings. Configuration management helps users and administrators know where certain services exist and what the current state of applications are. Think of it like this. If you keep up with the small things, you can avoid more complicated, expensive repairs in the future.

For example, you can make sure that your test and production environments match. With configuration management, you can accurately replicate an environment with the correct configurations and software because you know what exists in the original environment.

The role of configuration management is to maintain systems in a desired state. Traditionally, this was handled manually or with custom scripting by system administrators. Automation is the use of software to perform tasks, such as configuration management, in order to reduce cost, complexity, and errors. Through automation, a configuration management tool can provision a new server within minutes with less room for error. You can also use automation to maintain a server in the desired state, such as your standard operating environment SOE , without the provisioning scripts needed previously.

Configuration management tools make changes and deployments faster, remove the potential for human error, while making system management predictable and scalable.

They also help you to keep track of the state of your resources, and keep you from repeating tasks, like installing the same package twice. Improve system recovery after a critical event with automated configuration management. If a server goes down for an unknown reason, you can deploy a new one quickly and have a record of any changes or updates that occurred so you can identify the source of the problem.

Your configuration management tools can also help you to run an audit of your system so you can more quickly identify where the problem is coming from. Red Hat works with the greater open source community on automation technologies. Our engineers help improve features, reliability, and security to make sure your business and IT performs and remains stable and secure.

As with all open source projects, Red Hat contributes code and improvements back to the upstream codebase—sharing advancements along the way.