configuration management

Look at Application Lifecycle Management during Project Inception

During a project’s inception phase various tasks usually take place. Joe Townsend takes a look at application lifecycle management (ALM) during the early stages of a project and what roles configuration management (CM), quality assurance (QA), and quality control (QC) play.

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Joe Townsend
The Importance of an Integrated ALM Toolset

Joe Farah writes that an integrated application lifecycle management (ALM) toolset is one that has ALM functions working together to provide a well-defined lifecycle process and capability. However, not all integrations are alike. Your tool suite needs to look and act like a single tool.

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Joe Farah
What Is the Definition of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)?

Joe Townsend attempts to find a proper definition of application lifecycle management (ALM) in order to bring some clarity to the field. He lists some of ALM's component parts, including requirements management, project management, and change management.

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Joe Townsend
What Is Happening to Apple?

Joe Townsend explores what is happening to Apple and why IT professionals should care. We can all learn a lesson from Apple’s success—and its failures. If we are complacent in our jobs as testers and configuration managers, our “personal stock” will drop dramatically.

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Joe Townsend
How Agile Teams Use DevOps for Deployment

Agile practices add value by helping teams detect problems early and avoid repeating them; these practices also help teams get feedback early and often. To extend the feedback loop into deployment, teams are taking a DevOps approach by including the needs of operations teams into the process early.

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Steve Berczuk
Should Agile Teams Minimize Branching?

Steve Berczuk explains that developers are most interested in whether or not an SCM tool is capable of branching, thus allowing more than one related stream of code to evolve in parallel. However, minimizing branching may be the best approach for agile teams.

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Steve Berczuk
SCM Problem Shuts Down Chicago Trading System

The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) trading system recently was shut down for part of a day due to a software glitch. Some inside the CBOE are looking to recent configuration changes, requirements tracking, and testing as possible culprits.

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Bob Aiello
Selecting a Software Configuration Management Tool

Deciding on a vendor for your CM tool can be fun or gut wrenching. The decision you make will affect how you control files, interact with other tools, and will touch every aspect of you daily work. Joe Townsend lists six questions you should ask before selecting a tool.

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Joe Townsend