Patent ID: 7761851

Claim:
A computer implemented method for providing a software development lifecycle with auditability and bidirectional traceability, the software development lifecycle having at least a development phase and a deployment phase, the method comprising: bridging the development phase of the software development lifecycle and the deployment phase of the software development lifecycle with a configurable workflow engine, a configuration management engine, and a managed deployment engine; and interconnecting the configurable workflow engine, the configuration management engine, and the managed deployment engine with one or more representations of work to be performed or of work performed, wherein the one or more representations of work to be performed or of work performed provide the software development lifecycle with auditability and bidirectional traceability; (i) wherein the configuration management engine further provides: responding to a request for change from the configurable workflow engine; providing one or more lists of versioned development assets needed to work on the request for change to the configurable workflow engine; providing a configuration record representing the one or more lists of versioned development assets to the managed deployment engine; and wherein the one or more representations of work to be performed or of work performed includes the request for change, and the one or more lists of versioned development assets; (ii) wherein the configurable workflow management engine further provides: responding to a request for change; initiating one or more workflows in response to the request for change, each workflow having a workflow entity, one or more workflow states, and one or more workflow actions; transitioning the workflow entity through the one or more workflow states in accordance with the one or more workflow actions; representing the workflow entity as one or more lists of versioned development assets for the configuration management engine to manage; providing the workflow entity to the managed deployment engine to be deployed; and wherein the one or more representations of work to be performed or of work performed includes the request for change, and the workflow entity; (iii) wherein the managed deployment workflow engine further provides: responding to a transitioning of a workflow entity in a workflow of the configurable workflow engine; creating a distribution using a configuration record from the configuration management engine, the configuration record corresponds to the transitioned workflow entity; distributing the distribution to one or more host targets; attaching a distribution log logging the distributing of the distribution to the one or more target hosts; and wherein the one or more representations of work to be performed or of work performed includes the workflow entity, and the configuration record.