Patent ID: 8694596

Claim:
A method for managing software, comprising: storing, in a central information broker, management information regarding a plurality of software managed by information providers; configuring the central information broker to automatically obtain software management information from the information providers, the software management information being stored by the central information broker, the configuring comprising: receiving software management data from the information providers, the software management data being associated with the plurality of software; extracting the software management information from the received software management data; and processing the extracted software management information to remove redundant information; selecting, based on a system landscape information request, one or more subsets of the stored software management information, the selected subsets comprising system landscape information derived from the software management data received from the information providers; generating representations associated with the one or more selected subsets of stored software information; and receiving, at the central information broker, a request for a subset of software management information from an information consumer; providing, to the information consumer, a generated representation associated with the requested subset, wherein the requested subset of software management information corresponds to the selected subset of stored software management information associated with the generated representation.