International Business Machines Corporation

Amber Roy Chowdhury

Karunakar Bojjireddy

Carroll Eugene Fulkerson, Jr

Jim Alain Laredo

Gregory J Rosensteel

A method for managing a configuration of heterogeneous software artifacts uses a common central configuration representation. An artifact of an unknown type, from an initial software solution, is submitted to a solution configuration tool. The solution configuration tool sends a request to a solution architect for locations of configuration files within the artifact. For each artifact whose configuration file locations have been requested from the solution architect, the solution configuration tool determines if each corresponding configuration file is a property file or an Extensible Markup Language (XML) file. If the corresponding configuration file is an XML file, then the solution architect provides a first and second xPath for locating the names and values of the configuration parameters in the XML configuration file. The configuration file and configuration parameter locator information is then stored in a configuration locator file. Information in the configuration locator file is used to introspect configuration parameters from the artifacts and store these generically in a central configuration file. Solution-level parameters are then defined and mapped to artifact-level parameters for use in configuring subsequent software solutions instantiated from the initial software solution.

Generically managing the configuration of heterogeneous software artifacts

A method for managing a configuration of heterogeneous software artifacts through a common central configuration representation includes adding a plurality of software artifacts from an initial software solution to a heterogeneous configuration tool. Using this heterogeneous configuration tool, artifact-level configuration parameters are extracted out of selected software artifacts by the heterogeneous configuration tool. The extracted artifact-level configuration parameters are then presented in a single representation. A subset of the presented extracted artifact-level configuration parameters is mapped to a set of solution-level parameters, which are then exposed in a subsequent software solution. Thereafter, parameters for one or more of the solution-level parameters, which are used by the subsequent software solution, are exposed. These parameters for the subsequent software solution are then mapped back to the artifact-level configuration parameters of the subsequent software solution.

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Cary, NC, United States of America

Amber Roy Chowdhury