Patent ID: 7707504

Claim:
A method employed within a network comprising: operating a web-based application having a multi-tiered architecture including an application layer and a database layer, the application layer including a plurality of application server instances, the database layer including: a database server having a database to store cluster configuration information providing a central definition of a cluster including the database and the plurality of application server instances, and a secure store file to store one or more database connection parameters; for each of the plurality of application server instances, the application server instance retrieving a respective database connection parameter in the secure store file, and the application server instance connecting to the database based on the retrieved respective database connection parameter; with a display, displaying in a front-end layer of a configuration tool a hierarchical visual representation of the cluster configuration information and a respective connection parameter of one of the application server instances stored in the secure store file; receiving via the front-end layer of the configuration tool input identifying the displayed connection parameter and the displayed cluster configuration information; in response to the received input, providing a batch of tasks to a logic layer of the configuration tool, including providing a key-value pair corresponding to the identified connection parameter and a second key-value pair corresponding to the identified configuration information, the first key-value pair including a parameter key to identify the identified connection parameter and a parameter value to specify a value of the identified connection parameter; the logic layer of the configuration tool performing the provided batch of tasks, including setting a value in the secure store file for the identified connection parameter, and setting a value in the database for the identified configuration information; and wherein the configuration tool is an offline configuration tool configured to operate while the one or more application server instances are not running.