Patent ID: 8141038

Claim:
A method for providing a virtual Reusable Asset Specification (RAS) repository, comprising: providing, using a computing device, separate RAS assets for different lifecycle phases of a software asset in a plurality of different RAS repositories, the plurality of different RAS repositories together forming the virtual RAS repository at runtime through use of RAS related-assets, the plurality of different RAS repositories comprising: an archives RAS repository for storing an installable RAS asset, the installable RAS asset including at least one artifact for implementing a solution, meta information for defining and describing the at least one artifact, and an archive RAS related-asset; a deployed archives RAS repository for storing a deployed RAS asset corresponding to a deployment of the installable RAS asset stored in the archives RAS repository, the deployed RAS asset including a deployed RAS related-asset and a reference back to the installable RAS asset stored in the archives RAS repository, wherein the installable RAS asset stored in the archives RAS repository can have multiple related deployed RAS assets; and an instances RAS repository for storing an instance RAS asset corresponding to an instantiation of the deployed RAS asset stored in the deployed archives RAS repository, the instance RAS asset including a reference back to the deployed RAS asset stored in the deployed RAS repository, wherein the deployed RAS asset stored in the deployed archives RAS repository can have multiple related instance RAS assets; linking, using the computing device, the installable RAS asset stored in the archives RAS repository with the deployed RAS asset stored in the deployed archives RAS repository using the archive RAS related-asset, wherein the archive RAS related-asset comprises a uniform resource locator (URL), and wherein the URL of the archive RAS related asset includes information regarding a server on which the installable RAS asset was deployed and a path within the server; and linking, using the computing device, the deployed RAS asset stored in the deployed archives RAS repository with the instance RAS asset stored in the instances RAS repository using the deployed RAS related-asset, wherein the deployed RAS related-asset comprises an URL, and wherein the URL of the deployed RAS related-asset includes information regarding an instantiation of the deployed RAS asset.