Implementing a software configuration management environment

Software configuration management (CM) environments are an active field of industrial endeavor that has not been well discussed in the software engineering literature. The capabilities required by those environments are in addition to the usual capabilities specified for software development environments and have not yet found their way into the integrated project support environment discussions. This article identifies three basic capabilities required of every software CM environment, discusses the desirability of four additional capabilities, provides a generalized note of caution on CM tools in a client-server environment, and integrates lessons learned throughout.<>