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If someone gains unauthorized access to your system, they could make changes that lead to security issues, including data breaches. For that reason, companies need to be proactive about determining who's modifying system configurations, when, and why.
Configuration management is a methodology designed to help organizations manage IT infrastructure. There are platforms capable of supporting the configuration needs of every technology, including one for configuring Dell business clients' systems.
What Is Configuration Management and Why Is It Important?
The term configuration covers all the settings and parameters that control the behavior and functionality of system components like networks, hardware, and software. For example, you may have environmental variables that affect how your programs behave. These variables are used with configuration management to control various options for test, stage, and production environments.
Your configurations act as instructions that guide system behavior and help it optimize performance in several ways.
Improved System Recoverability
Regardless of size, every modern enterprise should have a disaster recovery and business continuity plan. Many top configuration management solutions provide automation capabilities to capture information about assets.
Today's IT environments often have complex software infrastructures. Configuration management tools allow for automated deployment of configurations across different systems. Administrators can turn to CM tools to restore the last working configuration if a failure happens.
Reduced System Disruptions
Manual configuration updates can cause system inconsistencies, resulting in unexpected behaviors and disruptions. Automated solutions allow your organization to standardize how it applies configuration settings across different systems.
Eliminating manual updates whenever possible prevents configuration drift, where systems gradually move away from their intended settings because of manual changes. Using CM tools helps systems behave predictably, reducing the potential of configuration inconsistencies leading to disruptions.
Enhanced Documentation Practices
CM tools like Ansible automatically generate configuration records and maintain logs of any configuration change made to a system. Using CM tools also helps maintain updated, accurate configuration records.
These documents capture:
- System configuration changes like patches, deployments, or setting updates
- When and why changes were made (version control history)
- All dependencies and relationships between different system components
IT Configuration Management Processes and Best Practices
Configuration management should be a major priority if you're worried about security, user experience, and getting your applications to run more smoothly. Optimizing how you manage configurations means users are less likely to run into performance issues that slow them down or lead to extended downtime.
A well-managed environment goes a long way towards stopping hackers eager to exploit configuration vulnerabilities. Automation cuts out errors left behind by inattentive or inexperienced users who may not realize the gravity of their mistakes.
Planning and Identification of Configuration Items
Configuration items represent any IT environmental component that falls under configuration management. Examples include the database supporting your custom business website or the equipment used to power your local area network (LAN) setup for at-home workers.
You also need to track the details around these items. If you use an on-premises database, whom do you contact if a weather event cuts power and takes them offline? Organizations that use cloud providers like Azure or Amazon should know what steps to take if an outage affects company services.
A sustainable and effective configuration management process starts with planning. This phase should cover the scope of your organization's configuration policies, which processes to use, and the team roles involved.
1. Define objectives
Set clear configuration management goals, such as improving compliance or hardening security. Are you worried about too many settings being hard-coded directly into application code or personally identifiable information (PII) not securely transferring over networks? If so, put your team to work to address these problems first.
2. Determine scope
Decide which systems, environments, and applications configuration management should handle. Consider any APIs your company may own, test environments, or the version control tools developers use to execute code.
3. Create a governance framework
Outline who manages the configuration process, how decisions are made, and the tools and resources used. For example, which person or team will assume responsibility for ensuring that other areas comply with the IT configuration management framework? What is the process for submitting change requests to the configuration control board (CBB), the entity that approves changes to configuration items?
Once you identify and document configuration items, keep track of them in a configuration management database (CMDB).
Version Control and a Baseline
Using version control tools like Git and SVN gives you a clear history of any changes made to configuration items, including scripts and files. That audit trail becomes very handy when outside authorities conduct a review to ensure you do everything possible to comply with laws like HIPAA and GDPR.
Another benefit of version control is establishing a baseline for all configuration items at different points. Tools like Ansible let you take snapshots at various intervals. You can revert to a previous working copy if a system failure or coding mishap occurs.
This minimizes users' downtime and speeds up the recovery process. If you have team members working on different configuration items, you can create different branches that allow team members to work independently without disrupting each other's work.
Change Control Management
Putting changes through a review process prevents unauthorized updates from getting into your environments. Organizations should establish a formal policy defining different change request types (standard, normal, emergency) and approval requirements. The overall process usually involves:
- Submitting change requests
- Performing an impact analysis, including a risk assessment
- Getting approval for the change from relevant stakeholders
- Implementing the change according to predefined standards
- Performing a post-change review to confirm the updates did not introduce new issues
As a best practice, link your change requests to specific configuration items in your CMDB. That gives the CI team more insight into the potential risks of implementing any change.
Configuration Status Accounting
The configuration status accounting process allows you to track and report on the state of a configuration item throughout its lifecycle. Some key activities in the process include:
- Documenting the state of each item, including the version, location, and operational status
- Keeping up with details on configuration items like when a change got made, who made it, and why
- Create reports offering a detailed view of an environment's overall configuration state to understand what systems are and are not compliant
Configuration Verification and Auditing
Once you implement configurations, you need an established process to confirm proper setup. Use the baselines established through version control and follow guidelines that confirm the system functions correctly. For example, if you change the credentials for accessing a data source, validate that an application can still pull in the information users require.
Below are examples of standard verification activities:
- Reviewing a system's configuration to make sure it matches a baseline
- Running tests to confirm that any changes implemented did not affect system functionality
- Using automation to compare the current configurations to baselines and note any discrepancies
Popular Configuration Management Tools
Below are some popular configuration tools used within many industries.
- Ansible: Open-source software tool used to automate configuration of servers, networking, and storage. It uses YAML-based playbooks to outline automation processes that make manual configuration steps repeatable.
- Puppet: Automates the configuration setup of different environments and tracks what happens to configuration items throughout their lifecycle. It helps enforce system compliance and enforce policies across large environments.
- Terraform: Allows users to define and set up configurations in systems and environments in the cloud and on-premises. It's often used to manage cloud infrastructure configurations.
Real-World Examples of Effective Configuration Management
Every company can benefit from configuration management. Netflix used tools like Spinnaker to define, provision, and manage AWS resources. They gained the ability to validate that all environments received consistent provisioning, allowing Netflix to roll out new changes and features quickly while maintaining consistency and uptime.
Another example is Meta, which used the configuration tool Chef to automate infrastructure deployments and configurations. That helped the company provision its servers consistently, reducing potential errors.
The above are just some of what organizations can achieve with the right combination of tools and automation. Using Dell SafeBIOS in modern management can help hybrid organizations manage in-office and remote workforces.
Contact one of our representatives to learn more about other Dell tools to help you achieve your desired configuration management.