Continuous configuration automation (CCA) is the methodology or process of automating the deployment and configuration of settings and software for both physical and virtual data center equipment.
CCA tools use a programmable framework for configuration and orchestration through coding, planning, and incrementally adopting policies.
CCA grew out of a push to develop more reliable software faster.
[1] Gartner describes CCA as “Embodying lean, agile and collaborative concepts core to DevOps initiatives, CCA tools bring a newly found level of precision, efficiency and flexibility to the challenges of infrastructure and application configuration management.” [4] CCA tools support administrators and developers to automate the configuration and Orchestration of physical and virtual infrastructure in a systematic way that give visibility to state of infrastructure within an enterprise.
Generally thought of as an extension of infrastructure as code (IaC) frameworks.