vcorazza
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Dec 06, 2017 3:14 pm

Big client-server installation with internet update

Wed Dec 06, 2017 4:10 pm

Hi,
we are planning to migrate from our legacy installer to a new one, and Advanced Installer seems to be very powerful option. But we have a complex scenario:
- very big installation program: many GB
- client-server installation: every installation has 1 server and many clients
- the clients are not connected to the internet
I'm wondering how to build the installer in order to manage the upgrades so that:
- Download from internet update only modified modules of the new release (I would like not to download GB for every update)
- Download the updates only once, not once per client: clients could not be connected to the internet at all.
- Possibly the clients should upgrade without accessing shared folders on the server (is there a way to download installation files from the server to client local folder?)
- Download updates in the background, before customers decides to upgrade the application: I don't want them to wait for the download
- Launch the upgrade as a service

Is Advanced Installer able to manage such a scenario?
Thanks

Daniel
Posts: 8237
Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2012 1:11 pm
Contact:  Website

Re: Big client-server installation with internet update

Fri Dec 08, 2017 3:19 pm

Hello and welcome to our forums,

I think you should be able to achieve what you need by creating two setup projects. One setup package for the server application and another setup package for the client application. Both packages could make use of our "Updater" tool. This is a tool which search for updates on a web server location and download and install them.

For instance, you could configure the Updater of the Server setup package to look for updates on your online location and download and install them. The installation package could also copy the client installation packages on your network shared location. Then the Updater of your client setup package could be configured to look for updates on your network shared location.

Please have a look on our "Using the Updater" article to get a starting point about how our Updater works.

All the best,
Daniel
Daniel Radu - Advanced Installer Team
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vcorazza
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Dec 06, 2017 3:14 pm

Re: Big client-server installation with internet update

Mon Dec 11, 2017 9:59 am

Thank you very much for your reply.
The issue with this approach is that Updater is able to download only one file, and I don't want to have one big file (many GB to download). I could download a web installer exe, but the limit is again that the web installer will download the entire application, and not only the updated components. Is there a way to bypass this second limit? What I am thinking about is something like this:
- the first time, the web installer will download the entire application
- for the following updates, the web installer will download only updated packages

Is this possible?

Daniel
Posts: 8237
Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2012 1:11 pm
Contact:  Website

Re: Big client-server installation with internet update

Mon Dec 11, 2017 2:37 pm

Hello,

You can try to make usage of our "File Download" operation. For instance in the updates setup package you could include one or more file download operations.

Hopefully this will help.

All the best,
Daniel
Daniel Radu - Advanced Installer Team
Follow us: Twitter - Facebook - YouTube

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