Book excerpt: The book provides a comprehensive approach to configuration management from a variety of product development perspectives, including embedded and IT. It provides authoritative advice on how to extend products for a variety of markets due to configuration options. The book also describes the importance of configuration management to other parts of the organization. It supplies an overview of configuration management and its process elements to provide readers with a contextual understanding of the theory, practice, and application of CM. The book illustrates the interplay of configuration and data management with all enterprise resources during each phase of a product lifecycle.