Patent ID: 8205195

Claim:
A method of classifying and deploying patches to update applications installed on computer systems, comprising: prior to receiving a patch, creating a patch classification database in a network; for each computer system in the network, identifying a first set of elements in the computer system that have a direct impact to the computer system, identifying a second set of elements in the computer system that are relevant to the computer system, storing information associated with the identified first and second sets of elements in a record in the patch classification database; receiving the patch from a developer, the patch being identified and marked by the developer using metadata as whether it has a direct impact on a given computer system in the network; for each computer system in the network, getting a respective record from the patch classification database, scanning the respective record to determine if the patch corresponds to the first set of elements in the computer system has a direct impact on the computer system and if the patch corresponds to the second set of elements in the computer system is relevant to the computer system; automatically deploying the patch to computer systems where the patch has no direct impact and is irrelevant; and deploying the patch at a time scheduled by a user to computer systems where the patch has a direct impact and is relevant.