APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT PROCESS FOR USE IN A DISTRIBUTED COMPUTER ENTERPRISE ENVIRONMENT

An application "builder" generates a configuration management application for use in a distributed computing environment having at least one management server and at least one endpoint. The endpoint includes a set of endpoint data to be managed by the application. The application developer begins by creating application prototyping data for the particular management application. The application prototyping data is then imprinted on a "blank" profile object to generate a prototype application comprising a profile object and an associated database whose records contain configuration information to be applied to at least one endpoint object. After the prototype application is generated, control information derived from the prototyping data is passed from the profile object to the endpoint object to read/write the endpoint data to/from the database records and/or to modify the database records in some way. As a result of such evaluation, the application developer can test how the prototype will operate because the testing is carried out with the actual endpoint data. Thereafter, the application prototyping data is refined as necessary and the process is repeated until the prototype is adequately tested. When the application prototype data is finalized, it is again applied to the profile to generate a final profile object, which is then used to drive a source code generator to create the application.