Configurationsuch

Configurationsuch is a term used in systems engineering and computer science to denote the process of searching for configurations of a system that satisfy a set of constraints and optimization goals. It involves exploring a configuration space defined by components, features, parameters, and their interdependencies, with the aim of identifying configurations that meet functional requirements while optimizing attributes such as cost, performance, energy use, or reliability.

Configurationsuch is commonly formulated as a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) or a combinatorial optimization problem. Solvers from SAT/SMT, CSP, and integer programming families are used to prune infeasible regions of the space and to search for optimal or Pareto-efficient configurations. Hybrid approaches combine constraint reasoning with heuristic search, evolutionary algorithms, and metaheuristics to cope with large or dynamic configuration spaces. Feature models, product-line engineering, and deployment planning often provide the structural input for the search.

Applications include software product line engineering to select feasible feature combinations, hardware and embedded system configuration, cloud deployment planning, network configuration, and automotive or IoT software setups. In practice, configurationsuch supports decision support, automatic configuration generation, and compliance checking against regulatory or architectural constraints.

Challenges include the size of the configuration space, inter-feature dependencies, changing requirements, multi-objective trade-offs, and uncertainty in input data. Verification of the resulting configuration, reproducibility of the search, and explainability of the chosen configuration are important in industrial settings.

Etymology and usage: The term is influenced by German Konfigurationssuche; in English-language literature it appears rarely as configurationsuch and is more commonly described by related terms such as configuration search or constraint-based configuration.

See also: Constraint satisfaction problem, feature modeling, product line engineering, configuration management, optimization.