Patent ID: 8161473

Claim:
A method, executed by a processor, comprising: producing an inventory of applications for each of a plurality of clients in a network, the producing including: for each client, examining one or more inventory categories to identify applications installed on the client; enumerating the applications installed in the client; examining a plurality of supplemental categories of the client, each of the plurality of supplement categories being respective of a distinct grouping in which one or more of the enumerated applications that are installed on the client have presence; based on the examination of the plurality of supplemental categories for the client, creating relationships between each of the enumerated applications and respective supplemental categories; based on the examination of the plurality of supplemental categories for the client, discovering one or more additional applications on the client not identified via the examination of the one or more inventory categories and creating records for each of the one or more additional applications that relate each of the one or more inventory categories; and forming an inventory for the client in a central data store accessible via the network.