Software configuration management: The single solution myth
By Jennifer deJong
July 1, 2008 —
(Page 1 of 4)
Toolmakers aren’t known for looking beyond their own bottom line. But when it comes to software configuration management, many are putting aside their short-term interests. Rather than insisting on being the only fish in the pond, they see strength in diversity.
When asked how best to contend with the complexity of managing multiple SCM offerings found in most IT shops today, SCM toolmakers are pointing out the value of pragmatic approaches, as opposed to standardizing on one solution. They say that allowing different SCM tools to coexist—and devising an effective strategy to share data among them—permits IT to create a single view of all development projects, without the pain of wholesale migration to a single SCM offering.
“Combining all SCMs isn’t always the answer,” said IBM Rational vice president Mike O’Rourke. An alternative, he said, is a “connector strategy,” in which individual development teams stick with their own SCM tool and figure out how to share what data, with whom and when.
The challenge of combining systems, or just the data in them, comes as IT shops find they’re running more SCM tools than ever. The proliferation is driven not only by mergers and acquisitions, and the emergence of offshore teams in India, but also by open-source projects, which force code committers to use open-source SCM offerings.
“We live more and more in the world of open-source and commercial offerings,” said Corne Human, a product marketing director for Borland. So when it comes to SCM tools, he added, it’s best to just “live and let live.”
By advocating coexistence, toolmakers are bowing to the reality that SCM consolidation is a hugely complex, often unrealistic, undertaking, said Forrester analyst Jeffrey Hammond.
“The costs of conversion are substantial, and for a large development shop, the migration process can take years,” he wrote in an October 2007 report titled, “Standardized Software Change And Configuration Management: Achievable Goal Or Wishful Thinking?” What’s more, SCM consolidation is increasingly seen as a low priority for IT shops focused on the more strategic mission of delivering applications that help the business achieve better results, many toolmakers said.
Related Search Term(s): SCM, AccuRev, IBM, Microsoft, MKS, Perforce
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