AFew Patterns for Managing Large Application Portfolios

Merger mania hits the corporate world as a side effect of globalization. Mergers of their information systems follow most mergers of companies in the same industries. This paper presents some frequent problems and frequently used solutions (patterns) to help you manage such information system mergers. The examples are mostly taken from „elephant mergers ” of corporations with application portfolios of well over 100,000 function points for the core systems alone. Such marriages typically appear in the financial industry. The patterns are also useful for companies, which have more than one information system for the same business function and want to consolidate their systems