System and method for application configuration comparison and reuse

A system for application configuration comparison and re-use comprising:

• a surveyor for scanning an application system that is a business application that is an Enterprise Resource Planning system that requires continuous access, to extract application configuration elements which are customizations performed on an application;
• a workbench to which extracted application configuration elements from the business application that requires continuous access are provided by the surveyor;
• means in the workbench for comparing the extracted application configuration elements with a reference system;
• means in the workbench for computing differences between the extracted application configuration elements and the reference system;
• means in the workbench for prompting a user to select configuration elements for re-use and uploading and installing user selected configuration elements of an instance of the application system.

A method of application configuration comparison and re-use comprising the steps of:

• scanning an application system using a surveyor;
• extracting application configuration elements which are customizations performed on an application that are identified in the application system during said scanning step;
• providing extracted application configuration elements to a workbench;
• comparing in the workbench the extracted application configuration elements with a reference system;
• computing differences between the extracted application configuration elements and the reference system;
• prompting a user to select one or more configuration elements from said extracted application configuration elements for re-use;
• and
• uploading and installing selected configuration elements of an instance of the application system.