Subject Matter Experts and Configurations

In a small organization with a few applications, you might know them all very well. In a large organization with thousands of applications, you will know very few of them well enough to make good decisions about repackaging applications. Therefore, for each application you must identify a SME. This SME should be an expert with the application, having the most experience with it. In other words, each application's SME will have insight into how the organization installs, configures, and uses that application. The SME will know the application's history and where to find the application's source media. Record the name and e-mail alias of each application's SME in the application inventory.

Configurations

During planning, with the SME's help, you should review each application and record the following:

• The location of the installation media. Often, the SME is the best source of information about the location of the source media, such as CDs, disks, and so on.
• Settings that differ from the application's default settings that are required to deploy the application in a desired configuration.
• External connections. For example, does the application require a connection to a database, mainframe, Web site, or other application server?
• Constraints associated with the application.
• Deployment compatibility. Is the application compatible with disk imaging and Sysprep? Is the application compatible with 32-bit systems? 64-bit systems?
• Application dependencies. Does the application depend on any patches or other applications?