An approach to software configuration control

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the process by which a system's life cycle and its associated life cycle products are managed to ensure the quality and integrity of the system. We call this process configuration control. Although many of the ideas in this paper are applicable to systems in general, the focus of this paper is on configuration control of systems with software content. It is becoming apparent to many, in both government and private industry, that the high cost of maintenance of existing computer systems may be attributed to poor configuration control early in the system's life cycle. For example, in an article entitled "A Corporate Road, Map for Systems Development in the '80s, the following claim appears,