Using black-box persistent state manifest for dependency management in patching and upgrading J2EE based applications

This paper describes a new approach to J2EE based software upgrade and patch management using black-box persistent state manifests which helps in self-managing the upgrade and patching process of Java based applications. We created a tool called object version checker which uses black-box based persistent state manifests to aid in software upgrades and patches to check the versions of installed components and identify components that are not installed correctly and cause potential problems to the whole enterprise. We provide a theoretical insight of the requirements, usage and usefulness of the tool.