An examination of configuration management (CM) from a "business value" perspective. It discusses why a company's e-business and e-commerce - encompassing Web content, Web applications, back-office applications, code and data - simply will not survive or thrive without CM. The book provides an overview of CM technology, reveals "best practice" techniques for selecting and deploying automated CM solutions, explores nine key challenges facing e-commerce, and provides guidelines for avoiding pitfalls that can quickly derail an e-business.
Author(s): Susan Dart
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 300
Contents......Page 5
Preface xv......Page 12
Acknowledgments xvii......Page 13
1 The Internet is a Fabulous Invention, But.........Page 14
The beginnings of maintenance problems 5......Page 18
The Web crisis consequence 6......Page 19
The Web changes everything 9......Page 22
Speed has changed everything 10......Page 23
Companies that embraced the Web created new opportunities 12......Page 25
Companies that ignored the Web are paying the price 16......Page 29
We need Web engineering 18......Page 31
Companies are busy now 19......Page 32
The future and some good advice 21......Page 34
An outline of each chapter 22......Page 35
Why I wrote this book 24......Page 37
Key messages from this chapter 26......Page 39
2 The Nature of the World Wide Web 29......Page 42
The Internet rules! 30......Page 43
The beauty and potential of the Web 31......Page 44
The phases of Web acceptance 34......Page 47
Initial focus for companies concerning their Web systems 36......Page 49
Mistakes are made too easily and are very costly 37......Page 50
The Web crisis 40......Page 53
What is driving the Web crisis? 42......Page 55
Web systems can be very complex 44......Page 57
Web system architecture and terminology 48......Page 61
Nine key Web crisis challenges 52......Page 65
The nature of Web programming 65......Page 78
Key messages from this chapter 68......Page 81
3 Understanding the Many Views of Configuration Management 73......Page 86
Configuration management is configuration management
regardless of object type 74......Page 87
The essence of configuration management: Key notions and terms 78......Page 91
The value and benefits of configuration management 83......Page 96
Signs of a configuration management problem 87......Page 100
What drives companies to a configuration management solution 88......Page 101
How success drives companies to configuration management 89......Page 102
Unified view of configuration management 93......Page 106
The eight functional areas of software configuration management 94......Page 107
Key decisions companies must make, or mistakes I see too often 102......Page 115
Key messages from this chapter 103......Page 116
4 The Automation of Configuration Management 107......Page 120
Spectrum of configuration management tools 109......Page 122
Not all configuration management tools are the same 111......Page 124
CM for Web teams 112......Page 125
What the configuration management vendors are doing 116......Page 129
What is the best configuration management tool? 118......Page 131
Enterprise-wide solution or project-specific solution? 119......Page 132
Relationship to other disciplines and tools 121......Page 134
Concepts, or architectural elements, in configuration
management tools 124......Page 137
The death and resurrection of the configuration
management industry 131......Page 144
Key messages from this chapter 132......Page 145
5 Configuration Management Tool Selection and Deployment 135......Page 148
Size matters, but it does not change how adoption is done 137......Page 150
Quick and dirty adoption or methodical adoption? 138......Page 151
The good, the bad, and the ugly about adoption 140......Page 153
Why companies fail at adopting a configuration
management solution 141......Page 154
The model of the configuration management solution 143......Page 156
Sequence of steps in the configuration management solution 146......Page 159
How long are the tool selection and adoption going to take? 172......Page 185
ROI and useful metrics 173......Page 186
How can we recover from tool adoption failure, or turn
fishelfwarefl into fiUseWarefl? 176......Page 189
The value of configuration management vendors 177......Page 190
The big gap regarding standards 180......Page 193
Should the tool follow the process or should the process
follow the tool? 181......Page 194
Key messages from this chapter 182......Page 195
6 Case Studies in Configuration Management Automation of Web Systems 185......Page 198
The messages and best practices 186......Page 199
Case study: Carclub.com 189......Page 202
Case study: eCampus.com 192......Page 205
Case study: EDS 196......Page 209
Case study: Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems 204......Page 217
Case study: Lycos 206......Page 219
Case study: NASD 210......Page 223
Case study: OneSource Information Services Inc. 219......Page 232
Case study: USinternetworking 222......Page 235
Appendix A......Page 242
A.1 Configuration management questionnaire 230......Page 243
A.3 Categories of risks 240......Page 253
A.4 Process description 244......Page 257
A.6 Example of a CM process model 245......Page 258
A.7 Template for configuration management status report 253......Page 266
A.8 Template for risk management plan 255......Page 268
A.9 Template for a pilot project plan 258......Page 271
About the Author......Page 276
Index......Page 278
