Patent ID: 8245189

Claim:
A method for managing a configuration of heterogeneous software artifacts through a common central configuration representation, the method comprising: submitting an artifact of an unknown type to a solution configuration tool, wherein the artifact is from an initial software solution; transmitting a request, from the solution configuration tool to a solution architect, for locations of configuration files within the artifact; for each artifact whose configuration file locations have been requested from the solution architect, determining, by the solution configuration tool, if each corresponding configuration file is a property file or an Extensible Markup Language (XML) file; in response to determining that the corresponding configuration file is an XML file, obtaining, from the solution architect, a first and second xPath, wherein the first xPath resolves to the names of configuration parameters in the corresponding configuration file, and wherein the second xPath resolves to the corresponding values of the configuration parameters whose names are identified by the first xPath; storing the locations of the configuration files and locations of the configuration parameters within configuration files in a configuration locator file; introspecting configuration parameter information from the configuration files using the locations of the configuration files and the configuration parameters that are stored in the configuration locator file, wherein the configuration files include both property files and XML files, and wherein the configuration parameter information includes both the names and values of the configuration parameters within the configuration file; generically representing the property information in a central configuration file as artifact-level configuration parameters, wherein the central configuration file includes introspected configuration information for other artifacts; mapping a subset of the artifact-level configuration parameters to a set of solution-level parameters and storing the mapping information in a configuration template file; exposing the set of solution-level parameters for configuring a subsequent software solution, wherein the artifact-level configuration parameters from the initial software solution are never directly exposed or manipulatable when configuring subsequent software solution; setting, for the subsequent software solution, parameters for one or more of the solution-level parameters; mapping the parameters for the subsequent software solution back to the artifact-level configuration parameters of the subsequent software solution; and installing the subsequent software solution on a set of target computer systems.