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A Guide To Software Configuration Management Tools
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Some changes happen at the time of computer software development. You should effectively control these changes. Software Configuration Management is a set of activities designed to manage unwanted changes in some work products. This set of activities works by marking these work products, establishing a link among them, defining devices for managing diverse versions of these products, controlling imposed changes and auditing as well as reporting on the changes.

In software engineering, the task of tracing and controlling unwanted changes in the building of computer software is technically referred to as software configuration management. Configuration management practices entail the organization of baselines and revision control. The typical focus of traditional configuration management is the control creation of simpler products. Now, implementers of software configuration management deal with minor increments in the complex system of software development.  

Let us now discuss about some of the Software Configuration Management Tools.

AccuRev

AccuRev is one of configuration management tools. AccuRev Inc. based in MA, USA, and Lexington and founded by Damon Poole in 1998 has developed this software tool.

Features of AccuRev

It utilizes a server or client architecture with atomic transactions. The server and client run on common systems of operation like Linux and Windows. It is available with command and graphical line user interfaces. The client merges with IDEs like Microsoft Visual Studio and Eclipse. Full support for renaming, deleting and moving files as well as directories is available. It provides a system for tracking an integrated issue.
 
AccuRev has no labels or branches in contrast to other configuration management tools. Instead, it uses the concept of a stream. Streams that are first class objects are graphically visualized in AccuRev. In AccuRev, streams include a mechanism for access control, a history of changes and contents. In a hierarchical organization, streams inherit contents from one another. You can directly compare streams on either the Change Package level or the file level.      

The isolation of a certain work effort is the use of dynamic streams. Implementation of baselines is the use of static streams. Labels are used to do it in other tools. Actual changes are made in private workspace streams. The contents of static or dynamic streams are cross-linked to those of other streams. Labels are utilized for this purpose in many other tools.

ClearCase
     
Revision control of software development assets is done with Rational ClearCase a software tool. The foundation of version control for several medium sized and large businesses is formed with this SCM tool. Rational supports software configuration of two types – base ClearCase and UCM. Base ClearCase provides the fundamental tools to make configuration very flexible and configurable. Both are configured to support SCM needs in a wide variety.

Platforms like Linux, Solaris, Windows and HP-UX are used to run this software tool. It can handle binary files in large repository sizes and large numbers. It handles labeling, versioning and branching of directories.

CVS

In software development, CVS is abbreviation for Concurrent Versions System that is also called Concurrent Versioning System. It includes a version control system the base of which is an open-source code. This software tool tracks all changes in all files. It was developed by Dick Grune in the 1980s.  

CVS can help you maintain several different branches of a particular project. One branch that is utilized for bug fixes may be formed by a released version of the software project. A separate branch can be formed by a version with new features and major changes under current development. CVS makes use of delta compression to store efficiently several versions of the same file.  

Visual SourseSafe

Microsoft Visual SourceSafe is a software package tool for source control in small software development projects. Like many source control systems, this software tool forms a virtual library of computing files. Users can access any file in the library. They are allowed to change the file after a check. The other visitors to the virtual library can view the changes after the file is checked in, that is why multiple users cannot edit a file simultaneously.        

Bugzilla

It is a Web-based bugtracker tool for software configuration management and software development. The Mozilla project has developed as well as used the tool. As a defect tracker for proprietary products and free software, it serves various organizations.   

StarTeam

StarTeam is a software system and a revision control that serves as a software tool for software configuration management. All changes introduced to a project are retained by a relational database that supports this system. StarTeam supports three way merging branching, advanced user access, difference analysis, security management, end user, checkpoints, customization features and administrator auditing as well.        

Perforce

Perforce is a proprietary revision control system. Perforce Software, Inc has commercially developed it. The features of this software tool for software development are:

•    Complete file with metadata history
•    Full revision history for renamed, branched, copied, moved and deleted files
•    Graphical merging, diffing and online or offline reconciliation
•    Graphical administrative interface
•    Three ways merging for text files, re-merge and merge tracking prevention
•    Common ancestor detection
•    Support for Unicode, binary, Mac-specific, ASCCII and UTF-16 files
•    File compression for network transfer and repository storage       
•    Changelists for changed files are grouped together and logical changes are tracked
•    Atomic commits for the commission of changelists in their entirety is assured by the server
•    Support for localization, internationalization and RCS-style keyword expansion
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