When working with a distributed configuration, there are a number of ways to organize these configurations. The most obvious approach might be to organize configurations by machine type. For instance, put all configurations needed by web servers into one app and all configurations needed by database servers in another app. The problem with this approach is that any changes that affect both types of machines must be made in both apps, and it is most likely that mistakes will be made.

The less fragile but more complicated approach is to normalize your configurations, ensuring that there is only one copy of each configuration spread into multiple apps.