Modelling distribution in an entity-based SCM system

System development strongly demands for high level SCM (System Confuguration Management) functionalities. In particular, distributed application developments require great flexibility in the modelling and management of system components interconnections. In this respect, the most widely used configuration management systems and languages appear not to be adequate unless explicitely targeted to distributed environments, e.g., the CONIC and DURRA systems. This seems quite unnatural since distribution is not an intrinsic feature of the application but should be modelled as a further property of the system under development. Therefore, a general SCM system should provide concepts and mechanisms to express the requirements that the distributed nature of a system puts on the development of system components. According to this observation, our goal has been to provide a context-independent, policy-free model, for supporting software component development, where standard CM facilities and support for high level activities (distributed system configuration, dynamic reconfiguration, ... ) are available. In the following we sketch the basic features of our entity-based SCM system, that naturally allow to deal with the distribuited framework; then, we focus on how to use the facilities the system makes available to cope with the development and management of distribuited applications.