Configuration Management

Configuration management (CM) is the process of tracking and controlling configuration changes to systems and software in an organization. CM is the process of recording and maintaining the configuration of information system (IS) in an organization. It is the IT function where the configuration of key components in an IT environment is independently recorded and usually supported by the use of automated tools employed to inventory and control system configuration. Furthermore, it helps ensure that information systems are deployed in a secure, consistent state and that they stay in a secure, consistent throughout their entire lifetime. In addition, configuration management (CM) ensures that systems in the organization are configured similarly and the configurations of the systems are in a known good state and documented. And it ensures that systems are configured correctly through a baseline security in the organization. It includes information about all physical and logical components within the computing environment, and proper configuration management encompasses all settings, version controls, and patch levels hardware and software assets in the organization.

Organizations should establish a configuration management plan that enables them to identify, plan, control, change, and maintain all configurations within the environment of the organization. And it tracks the manner that specific systems and devices are configured or set up according to the security baselines. Besides, baselining is an important component of configuration management and deals with a snapshot of a system, device or an application at a given point in time, which is used to assess whether the system or application has changed outside of an approved change management process of the organization. Whereas change management provides organizations with a formal process for identifying, requesting, approving and implementing changes to the configurations.