Patent ID: 7734740

Claim:
An apparatus for performing configuration management relative to an aircraft, the apparatus comprising: a portable computer having a processor and memory configured for connection with a plurality of components of the aircraft to retrieve data from one or more modules of the aircraft components; a configuration file resident in said portable computer, the configuration file having one or more parameters associated with said data from one or more modules of the aircraft components; a translation file resident in said portable computer, the translation file providing a system call for informing a current application that data associated with a parameter is about to be fetched from said configuration file, the translation file further including commands for providing data for one or more parameters that are determined to be missing from said configuration file; and a construct processing module of a web server software module resident in said computer to update one or more web pages using one or more constructs; the processor and memory configured to, when the portable computer is operating standalone: execute said system call to inform said construct processing module that data associated with a given parameter is about to be fetched from said configuration file; determine whether the given parameter is missing from said configuration file based on a status of said system call; if the given parameter is determined to be missing, execute a command from said translation file to provide data associated with said missing parameter to said construct processing module; execute the web server module to include at least some of the retrieved data in one or more web page markups for providing a plurality of maintenance and/or engineering functions selectable by a user of the computer and performable via the computer as to one or more of the components of the aircraft; and execute a web browser module resident in the portable computer and in communication with the server module to display the one or more web page markups as one or more web pages on a display of the portable computer.