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Rating: 
Summary: Book Description
Review: Authored by an internationally known expert in configuration management (CM) solutions, this unique new book helps experienced professionals and novices alike see why CM is critical to the survival of their company's e-commerce and e-business development and management. Unlike other books on configuration management, this book examines CM from a "business value" perspective and shows why CM is critical to successful software development and, in particular, web development and maintenance. You learn why your company's e-business and e-commerce - encompassing web content, web applications, back-office applications, code and data - simply will not survive or thrive without CM. This practical, comprehensive book provides a thorough overview of CM technology, and reveals "best practice" techniques for selecting and deploying automated CM solutions. Nine key challenges facing e-commerce are detailed, along with practical guidelines for avoiding common pitfalls that can quickly derail your e-business. Case studies provide real-world examples of how major e-commerce companies use CM techniques for web development and maintenance today. Contents: The Nature of the WWW and Web Development. What is CM? Understanding the Tools that Support CM. Selecting a Tool. Deploying a Solution. Case Studies. Appendix: Process Templates. Susan Dart, a CM evangelist and consultant with 24 years of experience in software tools and development, is President of Dart Technology Strategies, Inc. Her unique experience spans academia and industry and includes positions in software and tool development, sales, research, and executive management for a leading CM tool vendor. A well-known speaker at international seminars and conferences, and the author of an earlier book on CM and more than 60 professional papers, she received her B.Sc. from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, her M.Sc. in Software engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Her background includes seven years at the Software Engineering Institute.
Rating: 
Summary: A must read for Web developers
Review: In the preface of the book the author states that her main aim in writing the book is to articulate and raise awareness about the Web crisis and then provide a solution in the form of configuration management. The book delivers the goods and fulfills the promises. Configuration management has been around for many years and the author is one of the top experts in the field.
The explosive growth of the Word Wide Web has changed the way software is developed for Internet and WWW. In the case of software development for the Web, the fundamental difference is the time-time to develop, time to change, time to modify and update, time to correct and so on. Configuration management, if not implemented correctly, can increase the response time of a company. But if the organizations ignore the CM principles and do a "quick job", then it can lead to greater disasters.
So how to implement configuration management techniques properly to Web development and deployment has been a problem that has vexed project managers and development teams. This book does an excellent job in telling how to integrate configuration management into the web development efforts of the organization, so that the organization can survive and thrive in this highly competitive internet times by providing its customers, shareholders, employees and so on with up-to-the-minute and accurate information.
The book provides an overview of web development and configuration management before getting down to the business of linking CM and web engineering. This overview provides a good starting point for people who are new to these fields. The chapters "CM tool selection and deployment" and "Cases studies in CM automation of web systems" are excellent and provide practical and surefire strategies and advise for the practitioners. The checklists, templates, questionnaires, etc. add value to the book as they can be readily put to use.
This book is a must read for project managers and development teams who want to consistently succeed in their web development efforts.
Rating:
Summary: Addresses challenges, raises awareness & gives case studies
Review: Ms. Dart is a well known expert in configuration management and her a long list of published articles are highly technical in nature. However, this book is not one of her "how to" approaches. Instead, it provides a path towards best practices that are conspicuously missing in most web engineering and web site management endeavors. My own background will add some context to my review. I have developed and implemented policies, processes and procedures for both software configuration management (SCM) and change control for a number of companies. SCM is an application delivery discipline that is key to product integrity and assurance during development and maintenance. Change control is a service delivery discipline that ensures that changes released to the production environment are carefully controlled. In the past the two were the concern of two entirely different domains (development and production), and only companies that had highly mature processes linking problem management, enhancements/bug fixes, SCM and release and production change management bridged the two domains. The web changed that because cycle times compressed and are driven by business requirements, not technical considerations. The tried and true processes we employed for SCM and change control were barriers to meeting business requirements and something had to give. Unfortunately, what gave was due diligence, which is well illustrated in figures 1.1 through 1.3 in this book. These figures show typical best practice development/maintenance cycle and typical change request process employed in non-web based systems, and the "fix it-publish it-fix" it approach that is too common in web-centric systems. This book provides the middle ground by examining how to implement processes and procedures that provide assurance without the barriers of the traditional approach to processes. Ms. Dart begins this book with a broad description of web-centric computing and a list of nine major challenges faced by this paradigm. This is foundation material that is more suited to managers, but is also valuable for technical staff who need to see the big picture. She follows this with a description of what CM is. Nothing new here for those of us who have been practitioners, but this may be enlightening material for the bright, young wizards who are geniuses at coding and system integration, but have little-to-no idea about processes. The next chapter, 4, covers tools from a functionality viewpoint. The discussion of evolutionary and full-process tools will help define your tool requirements based on how you manage development and production. She also provides some excellent pointers on how to develop a benefit analysis and determine return on tool investment, which is something the bean counters will want to see considering how expensive most CM tools are. Chapter 5 gives sound advice on selecting and implementing a CM tool. This chapter is especially valuable because of the pointers on managing the RFP and vendor evaluation and selection process. Templates and checklists supporting this process are provided in the appendices. The heart of this book for the practitioner and newcomer alike is chapter 6, which contains case studies of how major companies are using the more mainstream CM tools (ClearCase, Continuus, PVCS, and the like). This chapter is full of ideas and shows typical challenges faced, and the solutions crafted, to balance the "Internet-time" driven implementations and releases with processes that support assurance and integrity. This book is high-level and process-oriented. If you are seeking a down-in-the-dirt book on how to implement and manage CM in a web-centric environment look elsewhere. However, if you want sound advice from a credible source about how to determine your requirements and develop processes and select the best tool, then this book provides value. I give it five stars for raising awareness and addressing the thorny problem of balancing traditional CM practices with the realities of web-centric computing cycle times.
Rating:
Summary: Addresses challenges, raises awareness & gives case studies
Review: Ms. Dart is a well known expert in configuration management and her a long list of published articles are highly technical in nature. However, this book is not one of her "how to" approaches. Instead, it provides a path towards best practices that are conspicuously missing in most web engineering and web site management endeavors. My own background will add some context to my review. I have developed and implemented policies, processes and procedures for both software configuration management (SCM) and change control for a number of companies. SCM is an application delivery discipline that is key to product integrity and assurance during development and maintenance. Change control is a service delivery discipline that ensures that changes released to the production environment are carefully controlled. In the past the two were the concern of two entirely different domains (development and production), and only companies that had highly mature processes linking problem management, enhancements/bug fixes, SCM and release and production change management bridged the two domains. The web changed that because cycle times compressed and are driven by business requirements, not technical considerations. The tried and true processes we employed for SCM and change control were barriers to meeting business requirements and something had to give. Unfortunately, what gave was due diligence, which is well illustrated in figures 1.1 through 1.3 in this book. These figures show typical best practice development/maintenance cycle and typical change request process employed in non-web based systems, and the "fix it-publish it-fix" it approach that is too common in web-centric systems. This book provides the middle ground by examining how to implement processes and procedures that provide assurance without the barriers of the traditional approach to processes. Ms. Dart begins this book with a broad description of web-centric computing and a list of nine major challenges faced by this paradigm. This is foundation material that is more suited to managers, but is also valuable for technical staff who need to see the big picture. She follows this with a description of what CM is. Nothing new here for those of us who have been practitioners, but this may be enlightening material for the bright, young wizards who are geniuses at coding and system integration, but have little-to-no idea about processes. The next chapter, 4, covers tools from a functionality viewpoint. The discussion of evolutionary and full-process tools will help define your tool requirements based on how you manage development and production. She also provides some excellent pointers on how to develop a benefit analysis and determine return on tool investment, which is something the bean counters will want to see considering how expensive most CM tools are. Chapter 5 gives sound advice on selecting and implementing a CM tool. This chapter is especially valuable because of the pointers on managing the RFP and vendor evaluation and selection process. Templates and checklists supporting this process are provided in the appendices. The heart of this book for the practitioner and newcomer alike is chapter 6, which contains case studies of how major companies are using the more mainstream CM tools (ClearCase, Continuus, PVCS, and the like). This chapter is full of ideas and shows typical challenges faced, and the solutions crafted, to balance the "Internet-time" driven implementations and releases with processes that support assurance and integrity. This book is high-level and process-oriented. If you are seeking a down-in-the-dirt book on how to implement and manage CM in a web-centric environment look elsewhere. However, if you want sound advice from a credible source about how to determine your requirements and develop processes and select the best tool, then this book provides value. I give it five stars for raising awareness and addressing the thorny problem of balancing traditional CM practices with the realities of web-centric computing cycle times.
Rating:
Summary: Addresses challenges, raises awareness & gives case studies
Review: Ms. Dart is a well known expert in configuration management and her a long list of published articles are highly technical in nature. However, this book is not one of her "how to" approaches. Instead, it provides a path towards best practices that are conspicuously missing in most web engineering and web site management endeavors. My own background will add some context to my review. I have developed and implemented policies, processes and procedures for both software configuration management (SCM) and change control for a number of companies. SCM is an application delivery discipline that is key to product integrity and assurance during development and maintenance. Change control is a service delivery discipline that ensures that changes released to the production environment are carefully controlled. In the past the two were the concern of two entirely different domains (development and production), and only companies that had highly mature processes linking problem management, enhancements/bug fixes, SCM and release and production change management bridged the two domains. The web changed that because cycle times compressed and are driven by business requirements, not technical considerations. The tried and true processes we employed for SCM and change control were barriers to meeting business requirements and something had to give. Unfortunately, what gave was due diligence, which is well illustrated in figures 1.1 through 1.3 in this book. These figures show typical best practice development/maintenance cycle and typical change request process employed in non-web based systems, and the "fix it-publish it-fix" it approach that is too common in web-centric systems. This book provides the middle ground by examining how to implement processes and procedures that provide assurance without the barriers of the traditional approach to processes. Ms. Dart begins this book with a broad description of web-centric computing and a list of nine major challenges faced by this paradigm. This is foundation material that is more suited to managers, but is also valuable for technical staff who need to see the big picture. She follows this with a description of what CM is. Nothing new here for those of us who have been practitioners, but this may be enlightening material for the bright, young wizards who are geniuses at coding and system integration, but have little-to-no idea about processes. The next chapter, 4, covers tools from a functionality viewpoint. The discussion of evolutionary and full-process tools will help define your tool requirements based on how you manage development and production. She also provides some excellent pointers on how to develop a benefit analysis and determine return on tool investment, which is something the bean counters will want to see considering how expensive most CM tools are. Chapter 5 gives sound advice on selecting and implementing a CM tool. This chapter is especially valuable because of the pointers on managing the RFP and vendor evaluation and selection process. Templates and checklists supporting this process are provided in the appendices. The heart of this book for the practitioner and newcomer alike is chapter 6, which contains case studies of how major companies are using the more mainstream CM tools (ClearCase, Continuus, PVCS, and the like). This chapter is full of ideas and shows typical challenges faced, and the solutions crafted, to balance the "Internet-time" driven implementations and releases with processes that support assurance and integrity. This book is high-level and process-oriented. If you are seeking a down-in-the-dirt book on how to implement and manage CM in a web-centric environment look elsewhere. However, if you want sound advice from a credible source about how to determine your requirements and develop processes and select the best tool, then this book provides value. I give it five stars for raising awareness and addressing the thorny problem of balancing traditional CM practices with the realities of web-centric computing cycle times.
Rating: 
Summary: Long on generalities, short on detail.
Review: Surprisingly, this book already feels dated as it seems to have emerged from the e-boom. It aims very much at the broad picture as it appeared at that time. It has relatively little to say about the nitty-gritty of what aspects of Web engineering need special consideration in the context of CM. Disappointing from someone who has written well about CM in the past.
Rating: 
Summary: Good only to show why you need Configuration Management
Review: While this book does a great job of showing the need for change management for web sites, it gets all the implementation details wrong. The main focus is on configuration management for the software portions of the site. While very important, this is a standard problem that has been addressed by a number of version control / configuration management tools. When the book discusses web "content management", it gets it wrong (FrontPage and Dreamweaver are listed as content management tools) and misses the main issues of controlling and coordinating content updates on the site. Large scale web sites have special requirements on content coordination. For example, coordination changes in design of the site, coordination of content in various languages, and change management of database updates are critical to site configuration management and not touched on in this book at all. This appears to be mainly a software configuration management book that added some terminology and checklists for the web. Speaking of checklists, there are configuration management templates described in the books appendix; I was surprised to find the book's CDROM, however, contained only two Powerpoint slide presentations.
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