Understanding Configuration Management According to Its Purpose

There has been quite a difficulty in explaining andand configuration are required to catch up with the
elaborating configuration management for reason of itsevolving needs and demands in information technology,
technicality that many non-technical personnel andconfiguration can be quite risky. Systems and even
even some neophyte in configuration managementsecurity solutions such as firewalls tend to be more
technology fail to comprehend. Configurationhazardous when misconfigurations occur. Configuration
management has therefore been considered by manymanagement makes it less difficult to change
as the "holy grail" of software and informationconfigurations and set ups of computer systems by
technology. While there can be limitations in defining theproviding a fall back option when a new configuration
concrete meaning of configuration management, it canversion or upgrade backfires. Configuration
well be described and explained according to its goalsmanagement softwares do this by enabling the
and purposes.computer system to turn back to a previously good
Configuration management makes it easier forconfiguration set up when new configuration versions
computer systems to evolve with the changes infail. This will not only reduce configuration risks but will
software and computer technology. The ever growingalso minimize network downtimes that can result in
and the increasing complexity of informationcostly losses among organizations.
technology require upgrades to many computerConfiguration management enhances the security
systems and networks. The problem with configuringfeatures of a computer network. With a configuration
computer system to newer versions, however, is thatmanagement software in place, all processes,
it sometimes results in error and damages to theconfigurations and changes that take place in a
system. Configuration management technologycomputer system or network can be easily tracked.
prevents the occurrence of such problem by recordingThis greatly reduces the vulnerabilities of a computer
the details of changes that are done to thesystem from non-authorized intrusions that can come
components and devices of a computer system. Thisfrom internal and external sources.
way, it would be a lot easier to track changes andWhile the concept of configuration management is
more importantly errors that could have resulted indifficult to grasp, it can well be understood by the
network downtime and outages. In addition to this,purpose and goals of configuration management
configuration management maintains the integrity oftechnology. Configuration management makes it easier
the whole computer system by assuring that allfor computer systems to evolve with the changes in
changes and configurations that have been deployedtechnology. It also makes it less risky to configure
are appropriate for all components in the system.computer systems and enhances the security
Configuration management makes it less risky and lessfeatures of a computer network.
difficult to configure computer systems. While change