A Change-Oriented Conceptual Framework Of Software Configuration Management

In the IT industry, software maintenance after system delivery is a major concern for any system development team. Software maintenance involves system updates for new customer requirements and error corrections within the delivered software. The management of maintenance is the service management of IT products, the cost of which can account for more than 50% of the total development budget. A major reason for the high cost is the changes brought about by the software updates and error corrections. Inconsistencies in the changes occurring in software development and service management afterwards cause confusion and misunderstanding, leading to further difficulties of maintenance, which enevitably result in further cost increases. To keep the consistency of software products and improve the service management in IT software products, software configuration management(SCM) is an approach. Here, a conceptual framework is set up to introduce relationships between the four areas of SCM and implement mandatory referential integrity between them within the software development stages, then maintain these enforced relationships between stages. It can set up rules to ensure mandatory integrity in changes, retaining consistency and improving Service Management. It is flexible enough to apply with any development models, waterfall, rapid prototyping, spiral development, etc.