Configuration Management: What Is It and Why Is It Important? Benefits of Good Configuration Management. Git is a fantastic platform for managing configuration data. The actions are then run by the executable. Train users on the accurate use of configuration management tools and systems such as Teamcenter or Solidworks PDM. End test environment headaches in just 4 weeks. One team member may tweak a hardware allocation value so that the software runs more efficiently on their personal laptop. He has driven organization-wide process improvement with results of greater productivity, higher quality, and improved customer satisfaction. This adds accountability and visibility into configuration changes. What Is Configuration Lifecycle Management? | PTC Bitbucket offers a powerful system for configuration management that is built around Git pull request workflows and CI/CD pipelines. Configuration management helps engineering teams build robust and stable systems through the use of tools that automatically manage and monitor updates to configuration data. Ansible, Salt Stack, Chef, and Puppet are IT automation frameworks. What is configuration management - Red Hat Configuration management provides visibility into how systems and controls rely on each other, informing network stakeholders of the potential impact of change to network components, or controls. Once called configuration management databases (CMDB) and also referred to as configuration management systems (CMS), these tools offer network-level policy enforcement and redundancy through integrated backup capabilities. These frameworks automate many traditional system administrators' processes. It often relates to different ideas, like creating software pipelines to build and test our software artifacts. The following Microsoft management solutions are all now part of the Microsoft Intune brand: For more information, see Microsoft Configuration Manager FAQ. What does trouble look like for configuration management, and what are we trying to avoid? Privacy Policy Surprised by your cloud bill? Configuration management practices continue to evolve and now embrace remote resources and services. Auditing your existing servers? A CM tool helps a business enforce a desired configuration state for each item and provides timely alerts of any configuration problems. Next up, were going to discuss configuration management tools. Changes being made in the network are instantly identified by system administrators. If thats you, youre in luck! Jira Software, a widely-used project management tool, offers a powerful feature called "Field Configuration Schemes" that . And the concept isdeclarative style. What Is Configuration Management and Why Is It Important? - TechTarget Configuration Management: A Small Business Guide - The Motley Fool And many consider it an anti-pattern to use configuration management tools for provisioning. What are the Benefits of Configuration Management? Several industry standards help organizations define CI as a control with a unique identifier, type, description, relationship with other CIs, and status. Overlooked hardware and software narrow the view of CM processes, reducing the IT staff's ability to manage the environment. General tools such as SolarWinds Server Configuration Monitor, CFEngine, Puppet, Chef, Ansible, SaltStack, Juju and Rudder can handle data center hardware and SCM with some degree of automation. Cost reduction by having detailed knowledge of all the elements of your configuration, avoiding wasteful duplication of your technology assets. The roles and uses of configuration management have evolved and expanded over time. For instance, Docker neatly packages up steps needed to set up and run an application (in a Dockerfile). Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, change management is different than configuration management, asset management and configuration management, testing processes are essential for an IaC deployment, selecting the right configuration management tool, container orchestration tools for configuration management, Why configuration management is important for networks, Enable automated failover with a highly available CMDB, Maintain CMDB data integrity for automated disaster recovery, Automate declarative configuration management for IT ops success, Use Pulumi and Azure DevOps to deploy infrastructure as code, The emerging usability of ChatGPT in software development, How to gradually incorporate AI in software testing, Google teases generative AI expansion within its own cloud, A healthy perspective on software architecture scalability, 4 enterprise architect skills you should never overlook, Falcor vs. GraphQL: The differences that matter, Cloud experts weigh in on the state of FinOps, Dell Apex updates support enterprise 'cloud to ground' moves, Prepare for the Azure Security Engineer Associate certification, AWS Control Tower aims to simplify multi-account management, Compare EKS vs. self-managed Kubernetes on AWS, How to address Python performance problems. What is Systems Management, and Why Should You Care? Baselines and configuration items are critical insights into network data, systems, and relational dependencies. This is the process of finding and cataloging configuration needs throughout a system. Dockerfiles are committed to a Git repository for version tracking and need additional configuration management to deploy them to infrastructure. All Rights Reserved . Several factors that influence item reclassification include scope and complexity, change sensitivity, and business continuity value. Deciding which configuration data to collect and how to manage that data over time -- especially as hardware and software changes are required -- places a demand on IT staff. Read more: Access Control Security Best Practices. Moreover, each build must be thoroughly tested, and configuration management can be employed to specify the tools and test files needed to validate a given build. When a device requires service or replacement, an established configuration provides a baseline that can be preserved and applied to replacement devices. Originally, this was called the configuration management database (CMDB); ITIL v3 introduced the concept of a configuration management system (CMS) to replace the CMDB. Among the numerous features and attributes to consider are: Leading configuration management tools vary in their scope and purpose. Still, it is more concerned with the cost and validity of licenses, the physical location and costs of each asset, and how those things are procured and ultimately disposed of. Microservices vs. monolithic architecture, Configuration management: definition and benefits, Negative velocity: how to lift the complexity limit. Adding configuration management data alongside code in a Git repository provides a holistic version control view of an entire project. But the industry has changed completely. The Software Configuration Management Process: 5 Steps Every step of the way, configuration management provides logging to help track changes, audit access, enforce established configurations (such as specific version components) and maintain security within the library of components and builds. Many current software development tools have configuration management features built in. Browse for and install applications, software updates, and new OS versions, View device compliance against your organization's policies. The broad shift from mainframes to server-based computing in the early 1990s multiplied the volume of hardware and devices in the data center. Change the password for dev, staging, and production email services. Hackers and human error play their part, but a significant source of compromise is inadequate configuration management. Now that weve set the scene, we can dive into the details of configuration management. What Is Configuration Management? (Benefits and How to Use It) Consequently, change management is different than configuration management, but managing change -- and the potential impacts of change on a production environment -- is a vital part of configuration management. Although the use of configuration management typically requires more initial planning and effort than manual system administration, all but the simplest of server infrastructures will be improved by the benefits that it provides. Delivery Optimization, Windows Low Extra Delay Background Transport (LEDBAT), Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS), BranchCache, and other peer caching technologies to help manage content on your networks and between devices. Updated June 24, 2022 Configuration management is an essential concept in system engineering and information technology. Every service management tool is deployed with a supporting data repository. October 18, 2022 Configuration management is defined as the process of consistently maintaining a product's functionality and performance quality throughout its shelf life by making timely reconfigurations to its internal systems - which makes configuration management a subset of systems engineering. DevOps configuration is the evolution and automation of the systems administration role, bringing automation to infrastructure management and deployment. ITSM configuration management system aims to develop and maintain consistency in a product's functionality, physical characteristics, and performance. It will all be worth it in the end, though. Complex, cloud-based system architectures are managed and deployed through the use of configuration data files. Terraform uses IaC to provision and manage clusters, cloud infrastructure, or services. IT administrators use configuration management and ITSM to enforce accepted approaches while guarding against prohibited approaches. Infrastructure and architectural changes may be required to tighten security and enhance performance. You can think of configuration management like an always up-to-date inventory for your technology assets, a single source of truth. Specifications of computational hardware resource allocations for CPU, RAM, etc. But these three factors are not single steps. Administrators develop baselines through a four-step process via their functional, design, development, and production standards. The Benefits of Software Configuration vs Software Customization - HICX.com The Benefits of Configuration Management | Giva The purpose of configuration management is really to keep a detailed record of the information about the computer system and updating them as needed. What is Configuration Manager? - Configuration Manager Configuration management solves this challenge by creating a source of truth with a central location for configuration. When paired with automation, CM techniques can accelerate testing and release processes. Who knows what it would do! The framework seeks to define the various ways in which virtual care programs can and are generating value. Before we know it, several years have passed, and a new developer gets put on the project. In the cloud, multiple tools provide automation for infrastructure, compliance, and security management. Configuration control allows this to happen in an efficient, effective, and controlled way. So when we use configuration management tools, its desirable to use a declarative style and specify the end result that we want, not the steps to get there. Configuration Manager is a powerful management application, with the potential to affect every computer in your organization. Microsoft SQL Server as a distributed change management databaseand integrates with SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) to produce reports to monitor and track management activities. In fact, DevOps seeks to unify the goals of both departments. The same applies to rollbacks. Configuration management is typically implemented in the form of software tools, but it is a broad approach to systems engineering and governance, and it can be codified in standardized frameworks. Configuration Management is the process of maintaining systems, such as computer hardware and software, in a desired state. Benefits and advantages of using configurable systems include: Software configuration gives the power to the business user and frees them from IT: As the system provides a seamless and friendly user-experience, the business user will be happy to use it, as it also makes them less reliant on IT. By comparison, configuration management is typically concerned only with an asset while it is in operation. Applies to: Configuration Manager (current branch). Read more: What is Systems Management, and Why Should You Care? The AMA Return on Health framework, developed in 2021 in collaboration with Manatt Health, aims to define and measure the value of digitally enabled care for patients, clinics, payers and society. Although the benefits of configuration management can be compelling, the technology is not perfect. To name a few: Quick Provisioning of New Servers Cost reduction by having detailed knowledge of all the elements of the configuration which allows for unnecessary duplication to be avoided. And it could mean incorporating configuration management tools such as Chef, Puppet, and Ansible to store the current state of our servers. Older CM platforms were little more than spreadsheets that required extensive manual effort to populate and manage. Continuous integration is the process of bringing separate software artifacts together into a single location on a frequent basis, for the purposes of verifying that the code integrates properly. Configurations specifically are the rules, policies, and network components administrators have in their control. Here are Downtime can cost businesses thousands, and redundancy is one way to minimize disruptions. In fact, it can get confusing, as there are tools that support configuration management without explicitly being configuration management tools. But then the deadline starts pressing, and the task of going back through and rewriting the installation steps as a script gets pushed lower and lower in priority. When it comes to software, having a declarative style means telling your software the end result you want and then letting the software do the work in figuring out the way to get there. This might involve creating and configuring VMs, but it's also a powerful way to create and configure containers using container management/orchestration tools such as Kubernetes. Secure and scalable deployment of applications, software updates, and operating systems. While it is rooted in broader configuration management, SCM focuses on the management of the many artifacts and components involved in software development, including source code, modules, libraries and APIs, along with related elements such as documentation, change requests and trouble tickets. Configuration management tracks the components and ensures that a desired build uses only certain components. A baseline configuration is a known state of configuration that will successfully operate the dependent software without error. Where to start? But equipment that is not discoverable by or suited for a specific CM tool may require additional tools, spreadsheets or other documentation. Benefits of software configuration management. Good luckand from now on, audit, track, and write everything-as-code! But why is it important? Introduction to Configuration Management in DevOps - BrowserStack These ideas complement configuration management, but it's important to understand the differences. When the software is later deployed to a production environment, this new configuration may have a suboptimal effect or may break. Microsoft brings together Configuration Manager and Intune, without a complex migration, and with simplified licensing. This effectively splits the CMDB and carries a significant risk of configuration management errors and oversights. and human error play their part, but a significant source of compromise is inadequate configuration management. On the operations side, configuration management enables developers to stipulate an appropriate deployment environment for a build. What Is Configuration Management and How Does It Work? It helps you unlock more cloud-powered capabilities like conditional access. This console is the main point of administration, and lets you manage multiple sites. You can install the Configuration Manager console on additional computers, and restrict access and limit what administrative users can see in the console by using Configuration Manager role-based administration. Or it might relate to writing infrastructure-as-code to capture in code the current state of our infrastructure. Multiple administrators can share access to the CM tools for prompt remediation when needed. Without some cohesive way to bring order to the process, software building and testing would devolve into chaos. So, lets take a peek at the different tools we have at our disposal for implementing configuration management. The goal is really to make provisioning a non-event. For example, the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) v3 framework includes a detailed treatment of service asset and configuration management. These include static tests, unit tests, system tests, integration tests and blue/green (or A/B) tests. Staff know some of the hardware and software setups but must directly inspect each data center element to determine the existing configuration -- and there is no common method to determine what a setup should be. The primary benefit of configuration management is consistency of systems and software. For a more concrete example consider a microservice architecture. Differences between Green Globes vs. LEED for data centers, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. This workflow is similar to running ad-hoc shell scripts but offers a more structured and refined experience through the respective platforms ecosystems. Sometimes its easier to grasp a concept by understanding its antithesis. Another emerging technology to consider is GitOps, which enables a data center team to deploy container clusters using the Git code management and version control system. Any changes applied to the configuration must be reviewed and accepted by the team. The distinct steps to a CM deployment are: This Chef InSpec video tutorial reviews important commands to know, with two example tests, to boost your infrastructure as code skills. Incremental Development: A Comparison. However, all of this information can be a little overwhelming if youre asking the simple question of Where should I start?. Training that includes assigned responsibilities, objectives, and procedures for performing CM-related duties is essential for this designated group.