Abstract: A method for managing a software application. The method involves receiving an abstract API command to perform a life cycle operation (LCO) on a target system, where the LCO identifies the software application, where the software application is associated with a software application schema, and where the target system is associated with a platform independent registry, determining whether the LCO is compatible with the target system using the software application schema and the platform independent registry, where the LCO is compatible with the target system; mapping the abstract API command to an operating system (OS)-specific command for performing the LCO, where the OS-specific command is associated with an OS executing on the target system; executing the OS-specific API command to perform the LCO on the target system to obtain a result; and updating the platform independent registry based on the result.

Abstract: A technique in accordance with one embodiment of the invention uses an adaptive algorithm to obtain UDAPL event messages. According to one aspect, a process repetitively performs the following steps as long as the process expects to receive at least one event message. By polling the event message queue at least once, the process determines whether the queue is empty. If the queue is empty, then the process blocks until specified criteria have been satisfied. Alternatively, if the queue is not empty, the process reads an event message from the queue. After the process has either read an event message from the event message queue or finished blocking, the foregoing steps are repeated if the process still expects to receive at least one more event message. According to one aspect, when the process blocks, the process blocks only until a specified number of event messages have arrived in the queue.

Abstract: A method for managing a software application. The method involves receiving an abstract API command to perform a life cycle operation (LCO) on a target system, where the LCO identifies the software application, where the software application is associated with a software application schema, and where the target system is associated with a platform independent registry, determining whether the LCO is compatible with the target system using the software application schema and the platform independent registry, where the LCO is compatible with the target system; mapping the abstract API command to an operating system (OS)-specific command for performing the LCO, where the OS-specific command is associated with an OS executing on the target system; executing the OS-specific API command to perform the LCO on the target system to obtain a result; and updating the platform independent registry based on the result.