Patent ID: 7840673

Claim:
An apparatus for managing a plurality of servers hosting at least one hosted application in a plurality of environments accessible to corresponding clients across a network for the exchange of client data; the apparatus comprising a computer coupled to a memory, further comprising: a control file manager program in a computer memory accessible to an administrative member of each of a plurality of client groups, the control file manager to manage setup, scheduling and execution of control files of a hosted software application for each client group, and with each control file defining an administrative data transfer (ADT) with a data source, a data target, and a schedule for effecting the ADT and with the control file manager including: a migration module program in a computer memory responsive to a migration request by the administrative member of a corresponding client group to migrate a control file from one of a plurality of environments to another of the plurality of environments for the hosted software application, the plurality of environments comprising a software application development environment, a software application test environment, a software application user acceptance environment, a software application user training environment, and a software application production environment; and an environmental mapper program in a computer memory responsive to the migration request to map the corresponding one of the data source and the data target of the corresponding control file from the one of the plurality of environments to the other of the plurality of environments.