Which of the following is the MAIN reason for using configuration management?

Centralized administration is a characteristic of certain management tools (e.g., SIEM, directory services), but it is not the defining purpose of configuration management itself.

Configuration management does not aim to reduce the number of changes; rather, it controls and tracks changes to ensure they are applied correctly and consistently against a defined baseline.

While configuration management can help reduce errors during upgrades by providing documented baselines, this is a secondary benefit rather than the main reason for its use.

The primary purpose of configuration management is to establish and enforce standardized baselines across systems, ensuring that security controls such as patch levels, firewall rules, and hardening settings are applied consistently. Without configuration management, systems can drift from their secure baseline, creating uneven security postures and exploitable gaps. Consistency in security controls is the foundational security outcome that configuration management is designed to achieve.