Method and system for optimizing software upgrades

A method for providing an analysis of a planned software upgrade for a customer computer system, comprising:

• collecting hardware and software configuration data from the customer computer system including a hardware profile and an operating system profile;
• providing upgrade rules for the planned software upgrade;
• comparing the hardware profile with the upgrade rules to determine hardware compatibility with the planned software upgrade;
• comparing the operating system profile with the upgrade rules to determine operating system compatibility with the planned software upgrade;
• and
• generating an upgrade analysis report based on the hardware compatibility and the operating system compatibility.

A computer system for analyzing an impact of a software upgrade on a customer computer system, comprising:

• a data storage device storing a configuration inventory for the customer computer system including data on binaries on the customer computer system;
• a data storage device storing upgrade rules for the software upgrade;
• and
• an analysis tool processing the binaries data based on the upgrade rules to classify the binaries into a set of safe binaries and a set of at-risk binaries, the set of at-risk binaries including subsets of binaries differentiated based on a level of risk of incompatibility with the software upgrade.

A computer system for analyzing an impact of a software upgrade on a customer computer system, comprising:

• a data storage device storing a configuration inventory for the customer computer system;
• a data storage device storing configuration information for the customer computer system after the software upgrade;
• and
• an analysis tool for comparing the configuration inventory to the upgrade information to determine the impact of the software upgrade on the customer computer system.