A system and method of deriving software use and software data object characteristics determine one or more locations on one or more computer storage devices where one or more configuration and data files associated with computer software components are stored, and obtain one or more attributes associated with said one or more computer software components. One or more commands associated with said one or more computer software components may be issued and one or more related information associated with said one or more software computer components resulting from issuing one or more commands may be collected. The related information and the one or more attributes may be mapped to the computer software components to derive information about the computer software component use and data object use characteristics.