Configuration Management for Component-based Systems

One of the basic problems when developing component-based systems is that it is difficult to keep track of components and their interrelationships. This problem emerges already in the requirement phase, in which we want to identify and select the most appropriate components. Later, during the assembly and deployment process, or when upgrading components, the problem of components identification and dependency management becomes even more important. One way to maintain control over upgrades is to use component identification and dependency analysis. These are well known techniques for managing system configurations during development, but are rarely applied in managing run-time dependencies. Knowledge of the possible impacts of an update is important, since it can be used to limit the scope of testing and be a basis for evaluating the potential damage of the update. In this paper we analyse different types of dependencies and discuss how to identify and specify them, in analogy with Makefiles. The dependencies can be showed in a form of a dependency graph. The dependency graphs can also be used to facilitate maintenance by identifying differences between configurations, e.g., making it possible to recognise any deviations from a functioning reference configuration.