Software configuration management and engineering data management: Differences and similarities

Abstract

Engineering data management and software configuration management have been evolving fairly independently. On the other hand, it has been observed earlier that many parallels exist [10]. In this paper, we examine the similarities of and differences between EDM and SCM. Many concepts are similar, but there are some differences concerning the objects to be managed. As a consequence, some sophisticated fear tures of modern SCM systems are not applicable in the EDM domain because they are based on assumptions which do not hold there (objects represented as text files, tools operating towards the file system). Some suggestions for further work on version models and on the architecture of version support systems are outlined.