Product configuration refers to a collection of various forms (machine-readable or human-readable) and various versions of documents, computer programs, components, and data produced by a product at various stages of its life cycle. Each element in the collection is called a Configuration Item (CI) in the product configuration. The main attributes of each configuration item are: name, identifier, file status, version, author, date, etc. All configuration items are saved in the configuration library to ensure that they are not confused or lost. Configuration items and their historical records reflect the evolution of project products.
Work products placed under configuration management include products to be delivered to customers, designated internal work products, purchased products, tools, and other entities used to create and describe these work products.
Configuration management of work products can be performed at several levels. "Configuration item" is a designated entity for configuration management, which can be composed of multiple related work products. The configuration items can be decomposed into several configuration elements and configuration units.
User 1 and user 2 have different working environments. The A, B, C, D, and E modules are the same, and the remaining modules F, G, and H are different. The software product must take these differences into consideration and fully make it meet the requirements of each user. If the developed software product is an initial system with certain functions and performance, then the final product should meet the needs of users. Therefore, we must carefully study the real needs of users. In order to achieve this, the internal modules of the product should be designed separately for two users.
Because the difference between the two is not only that one contains F, the other contains G and H, and even if the A of the two is logically the same content, it may still be physically different due to the different needs of two types of users For example, two As appear in different media. In order to realize these two different software configurations, in actual work, each configuration item can be developed separately, and then combined according to needs into different products for different user needs, as shown on the right. It can be seen that "D. In the subsequent development stage, all modules required by two users must be managed as different sub-configurations" is wrong.
The baseline (Baseline) consists of a set of configuration items, which constitute a relatively stable logical entity. The configuration items in the baseline are "frozen" and can no longer be modified by anyone (such as tracking and controlling changes). The baseline usually corresponds to a milestone in the development process. A product can have multiple baselines or only one baseline. The main attributes of the baseline are: name, identifier, version, date, etc. The baseline given to customers is usually called a "Release", and the baseline used for internal development is called a "Build". A test version of the product (including requirements analysis specification, summary design specification, detailed design specification, compiled executable code, test outline, test cases, user manual, etc.) is an example of a baseline.