Software Architect's Handbook

Configuration management

Configuration management involves deciding what options for a software application should be made configurable and how that configuration will be stored, protected, and modified. In order to provide flexibility in how your application behaves and give it the ability to run in a variety of environments, configuration options should be made available. These options should be made external to the application so that they can be modified without requiring recompilation of the application.

A software application needs to be deployed and used in multiple environments, such as development, testing, staging, and production. In addition, it may use a number of different infrastructures and third-party services. Examples include ...