Software development and configuration management in the Cronus distributed operating system

A description is given of the authors experience with software development and configuration management during the development and use of the Cronus distributed operating system. Cronus establishes a computing environment in which it is possible to perform software development for a heterogeneous set of computers, issue periodic software upgrades for each supported type of computer, and provide support for the software after upgrades have been installed. The author has designed a software source control system to manage the introduction of new versions of software modules and have established a configuration management plan to control the distribution of software to the varied set of supported computer types through a master-host-relay-host-destination-host approach. In discussing release support, the author pays special attention to the bug report manager, a distributed Cronus service designed to manage reports of problems in the Cronus system