Change and configuration management starts with Host management. What got changed on my host machine? This is a troublesome task in today's IT arena where large companies are managing 1000+ servers. It is so very time consuming and companies are ending up lots of money on maintaining their Host machines at gold standard configuration. Let us take a small example:

You have got a new linux box where you need to install following to start with:

Linux operating system
Apache

You got linux installed. Perfect install! And, then got your Apache installed. Perfect configuration. And got a person to monitor! Perfect arrangement! But this perfect set up is fragile. The person got sick for one month, god forbids. And there is assigned another person to manage. He is a smart guy but got to office one fine evening with a couple of bottle of beers poured below his neckline. TGIF! He accidently changed certain configurations. Next morning is a holiday, saturday. some sincere guys wanted to work from home. However, things are broken. O boy! They waited for three days as the new person took entire monday to figure what he changed on Friday evening.

Is not that waste of time, waste of resources for nothing? Why not have a constant watch dog on this linux box? Why not have a change and configuration management tool to manage these pieces of software?