Patent ID: 8141072

Claim:
A method comprising: collecting, by a software service, computer system information for multiple computer sub-systems used by a customer, wherein the multiple computer sub-systems collectively make up a customer's computer system, and wherein collected computer system information comprises sub-system descriptions of each of the multiple computer sub-systems, software descriptions of all software that is currently residing in each of the multiple computer sub-systems, and hardware descriptions of all hardware that are allocated to each of the multiple computer sub-systems; receiving at the software service, from the customer, a new software name of a new software, wherein the new software has been selected by the customer for administration in a user-selected computer sub-system; determining, by the software service, which specific device in the user-selected computer sub-system should have the new software administered, wherein determining is based on collected computer system information for the multiple computer sub-systems; at run time, replacing variables in administration instructions with a device name for the specific device in which the user-selected computer sub-system should have the new software administered; and transmitting the administration instructions with the device name from the software service to the customer.