What does configuration management primarily concern itself with?

Configuration management is fundamentally concerned with the known parameters and settings of network elements. This involves maintaining a detailed inventory of the configuration of hardware and software within an IT environment. Configuration management ensures that all components of a network—such as servers, routers, and applications—are documented, monitored, and maintained in a consistent manner.

By having clear visibility and control over the configurations, organizations can quickly identify changes, track compliance with standards, and manage configurations effectively to reduce errors and downtime. Additionally, this discipline helps in troubleshooting and ensures that all systems operate as intended, which is critical for maintaining security, availability, and performance.

Other options touch on related concepts but do not capture the core focus of configuration management. For instance, while modification of hardware components can be a result of configuration management activities, it does not encapsulate the broad scope of managing configurations themselves. Network security assessment involves evaluating security controls but is not the primary aim of configuration management. Data recovery processes pertain to restoring lost data, which is peripheral to configuration management’s focus on maintaining system configurations.