CMSG Conference & Exhibition - 24 & 25 June 2003

Please note that the 2005 conference is on 21 & 22 June 2005

Implementing CM Everywhere
Change, Configuration and Content Management

The British Computer Society Configuration Management Specialist Group (BCS CMSG) Conference and Exhibition was held 24 & 25 June, 2003, at Homerton College in Cambridge, UK. The conference brought together managers and practitioners working in Change, Configuration and Content management.

There were over 15 presentations in multiple tracks, see the full timetable and programme.

Some of the conference papers are now available online.

The conference was reviewed by David Norfolk, the Co-editor (with Martin Banks) of Application Development Advisor, www.appdevadvisor.co.uk :

"The BCS Configuration Management Specialist Group (BCS CMSG held its "Implementing CM Everywhere" conference at Homerton College, Cambridge, last week, ably organised by Shirley Lacy (CMSG Chair), Michael Kennedy (Programme Chair) and Robert Cowham (Conference Organiser). CM seems to be a bit of a dark art (in fact Rene Schaap’s keynote was entitled "The Dark Side") but it is more than ever key to delivering effective IT to the business — think of someone rolling back a key Web Service component to a previous version by mistake. CM is on "the dark side of the moon", by the way, because (unlike quality management and project management) it’s mature and working but simply isn’t visible to the general run of IT professionals. It must become visible, but not (as the open forum at the end of the conference decided) as a separate bolt-on CM function but as an integral part of the systems development and deployment process, although it deserves its own support and mentoring facility.

A rich set of lectures covered everything from the fundamentals (Callum Kidd of the University of Manchester on the role of CM as a lifecycle management process), to new insights (Laura Wingerd of Perforce previewing thoughts on container-based CM from her new book), to the intensely practical (Richard Brooksby of Ravenbrook and Peter Jackson of Symbian on reforming a 500-user CM system that was going off the rails). There was also a lively exhibit area, offering a chance to compare offerings from well-known names (Rational, Merant, Telelogic, MKS, Perforce etc) with some neat offerings from less well known names such as Intasoft and NXN (find all of these on the CM Index on the BCS CMSG website). One novel product in what seems to be a stable industry segment was Spectrum (www.spectrumscm.com), with a wholly new and fully-integrated SCM (Source Configuration Management) tool supported by a nice line in stress-release sheep. Spectrum combines rich functionality (Version Control, Issue Tracking, Workflow, Process Management, Release Management and more) with an "only pay once" pricing model (instead of continuing license fees). On the other hand, it is competing against established players who aren’t standing still — we understand that an exciting new release from Telelogic is due soon for example.

Of course, social networking and education is also a feature of the BCS CMSG and it is well-worth joining quite apart from its conferences."

Exhibitors

The following companies exhibited at the conference: