System and method for determining and representing a lineage of business terms across multiple software applications

1 . A system for determining the flow of one or more business terms between a plurality of software applications, comprising

a data source for storing source code data associated with the plurality of software applications,

a data extraction unit for extracting data from the source code data to form extracted data, wherein the extracted data also includes a plurality of technical artifacts,

an application model unit for generating an application model that includes a representation of selected data components of the extracted data and for generating application model data from the application model, wherein the application model data includes data representative of a plurality of business terms and a plurality of technical artifacts, wherein the application model includes application interfaces for the plurality of software applications,

a term identification unit for identifying the plurality of business terms from the application model data, wherein each of the plurality of business terms includes business related data,

a mapping unit for mapping together in a multi-dimensional table the plurality of business terms and the plurality of technical artifacts from the application model data to form map data, and

a term lineage determination unit for determining an inter-application lineage of one or more of the plurality of business terms based on the map data by tracking a flow of the one or more of the plurality of business terms from an origination application interface associated with a first software application of the plurality of software applications to a destination application interface associated with a second software application of the plurality of software applications, wherein the inter-application lineage is representative of the one or more data paths associated with one or more of the plurality of business terms flowing between the plurality of software applications, and wherein the flow of the business terms is representative of at least one of direct flow of business term data or a transformation of business term data.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the application interfaces comprises one or more programs.

3 . The system of claim 2 , wherein the term identification unit identifies selected ones of the data components in the application model data, organizes the data components into a plurality of groups in which all elements of a group refer to the same concept, and associates each of the plurality of groups with one or more of the plurality of business terms.

4 . The system of claim 3 , wherein the mapping unit maps together the plurality of business terms with the plurality of software artifacts from the application model data that implements the business terms to establish a relationship therebetween.

5 . The system of claim 4 , wherein the mapping unit maps together the plurality of business terms and the plurality of software artifacts from the application model data for each of the plurality of software applications to form a map for each of the plurality of software applications.

6 . The system of claim 5 , wherein each one of the maps includes a table that tabulates the plurality of business terms and the plurality of software artifacts.

7 . The system of claim 6 , wherein the mapping unit is configured to combine the map for each of the plurality of software applications to create a combined map.

8 . The system of claim 7 , further comprising a storage unit for storing the extracted data and for providing the extracted data to the application model unit, wherein the storage unit comprises a database for storing the extracted data and a knowledge repository for storing selected information about the software application.

9 . The system of claim 8 , wherein the representation of the selected data components of the application model includes entities, relationships and associated attributes that describe a functionality of the data components in connection with each of the plurality of software applications.

10 . The system of claim 9 , wherein the entities include programs, classes, statements, data elements, tables, columns, or screens, and wherein the attributes include associated identifying information that further specify the entity.

11 . The system of claim 10 , further comprising a user interface generator for generating a user interface for displaying a list of the business terms or a list of the software artifacts that implement the business terms.

12 . The system of claim 7 , wherein the term lineage determination unit determines from the map data an inter-application lineage of one or more of the business terms based on the mapping between the business term data and the software object data in the map.

13 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the technical artifacts are shared between two or more of the plurality of software applications, and wherein the technical artifacts are designated as the application interfaces.

14 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the term lineage determination unit generates a matrix suitable for display on a user interface setting forth software applications and business terms, and wherein the software applications are indicative of applications functioning as the application interfaces.