1. Apparatus for a management support system for providing desired information relating to a life cycle of a large scale software system, said apparatus comprising: at least one software support system for colecting information relating to a corresponding phase of the life cycle to provide collected information and for storing the collected information into at least one software support system database; a host computer for extracting pre-defined portions of the collected information sotred within said software support system database to provide extracted information and for updating a common database with the extracted information; and at least one computer based workstation connected, via a workstation/host communications interface, to said host computer for formulating a request message to said host computer for execution thereat in order to access the desired information from said common database; wherein said host computer comprises means, responsive to said request message, for initiating a host session for accessing the desired information from said common database and for transmitting to said workstation, via said interface, a response that includes the desired information; and wherein said workstation comprises means for storing the desired information contained in said response.