Patent ID: 8429610

Claim:
A computer implemented method for providing dependency traceability in software configuration management, comprising the steps of: using a computer, for a given configuration of a subject software program formed of one or more artifacts, determining respective version of each artifact; maintaining a version history of each artifact in a storage medium; in configuration management, for each pair of artifacts throughout the given configuration, providing a respective traceability object, different pairs of artifacts having different traceability objects, for a given pair of artifacts, the respective traceability object storing a table of status indications between the respective version histories of the artifacts in the given pair, each said status indication in the table indicating a respective pair of versions of said artifacts for which a dependency traceability relationship is valid or invalid; and per version of a given artifact, accessing the traceability objects and determining, from the object tables a probability range for dependency traceability relationship between the version of the given artifact and a first version of a second given artifact based on the number of predecessor or successor links between the version of the given artifact and a second version of the given artifact having a valid traceability relationship with a version of the second artifact based on the status indications of respective versions of the artifacts, such that during configuration management the dependency traceability relationship of each pair of artifacts is determinable in each configuration employing one of the artifacts, wherein the probability range is a confidence rating giving a probability above which the status indications indicating a valid or invalid traceability relationship is to be believed.