Configuration lets you manage versioned settings for an integration. Each change creates a new revision, so you have a history of what was active at a given time. Extractors fetch the active revision when they start and when they report in to CDF.
Integration configuration is a revisioned document associated with an integration. Every time you push a new configuration, CDF stores it as a new revision rather than overwriting the previous one. This lets you audit configuration changes and know exactly which revision an extractor was running at any point in time.
Configuration revisions are immutable once created. To change behavior, create a new revision rather than editing an old one.