Patent ID: 8713525

Claim:
A method for upgrading a plurality of software programs installed in a data processing system, the method comprising: determining, by one or more processors, respective end of life dates for the plurality of installed software programs, wherein the plurality of installed software programs are no longer generally available from their respective vendors after the respective end-of-life dates; determining, by one or more processors, respective release dates of a plurality of replacement software programs for the respective plurality of installed software programs, wherein the release dates of the respective replacement software programs are dates in the future and pre-date the end-of-life dates for the respective installed software programs; determining, by the one or more processors, a common time period between all of the release dates for all of the respective replacement software programs and all of the end-of-life dates for all of the respective installed software programs; generating, by one or more processors, a report of the common time period and the list of currently installed software programs and corresponding replacement software programs to advise an administrator that all of the installed software programs can be replaced with the corresponding replacement software programs during the common time period; and generating, by one or more processors, an upgrade plan to replace the installed software programs with the corresponding replacement software programs in the data processing system based on the common time period and configuration information about hardware and software within the data processing system.