SCM Labs' Field-Proven Methodology

Elements of an SCM Labs’ solution:

• Auditable systems: Built-in self-auditing functionality keeps the system working optimally.
• User notifications: Communication is vital to encourage effective participation among users of the SCM system.
• Complete documentation: Accurate and complete documentation of your SCM solution gives you repeatable, consistent results.
• The SCM system as an independent trustee: We build your system so you can trust it to care for your software assets properly and effectively.

The four practices of SCM Labs’ methodology

SCM Labs’ methodology employs Version Control, Build Control, Change Control and Dependency Control as foundational SCM practices. We overlay these with appropriate processes that enable the integration, automation, and organization of your total solution. The four practices are outlined below.

Version Control: Stores your software releases
Storing all changes as a project evolves allows your team to retrieve any previous file or release. The Version Control system is the cornerstone of all software configuration management. Effective Version Control practices provide:

• Release-based file organization: all assets are stored in a release, including targets
• Comparing, merging, and promoting of releases
• Full support of parallel development including change propagation
• A centralized and secure repository
• Multiple working instances of a project to support development

Build Control: Creates your software releases
Build Control allows you to automatically create your releases to provide a consistent, predictable, and repeatable process for:

• Generating a run-time application from a specific set of project files
• Creating persistent versions of all software assets in a release
• Integrated and automated testing and reporting on the success of a release
• Integrating recent changes and checking integrity of targets
• Effective build notifications to ensure communication within the team
• A secure build machine to guarantee the run-time environment

Change Control: Defines your software releases
A comprehensive SCM solution must tie change requests to releases. It must also direct the steps of each change through workflow management. Change Control solutions will have these characteristics:

• Communication and workflow tools for implementing changes
• Full associations between releases and change requests
• Customization capabilities to meet your specific needs

Dependency Control: Associates your software releases with their dependencies
Even the most stable applications will not run correctly if they are improperly installed or run within the wrong environment. Dependency Control ensures that all components necessary to run an application are correctly installed. While Version Control, Build control, and Change Control all define the dependencies within a project, Dependency Control manages dependencies between multiple projects. An effective Dependency Control solution will have these capabilities:

• Run-time environment management to ensure the environment is stable
• Run-time release management to ensure the release hasn’t changed
• Inter-project management to ensure dependent releases are available
• Provides answers to “What If?” questions about the run-time environment
• Storage of the configuration of the run-time environment for any point in time
• Automatic querying to determine the integrity of the run-time environment

Solutions that benefit the whole team

Effective SCM solutions walk a fine line between the boundaries of too much control and too little. SCM Labs brings you the solution that strikes just the right balance.

We create a benevolent dictator of rules, enforcing those that benefit each individual, as well as the team effort—and ultimately, your bottom line.