You would most likely need to write a custom deployment engine that sits on
the client side of the install to handle the installation of COM and java
objects, as well as the overall CF deployment process.  It's important to
have something that sits outside of the application so that it can run a
transacted install which manages the install workflow, provides rollback
support in the event of an error, and can stop and start services as
necessary.

Now just because it sits outside of the application doesn't mean that the
application itself doesn't play a role.  The easiest way to manage the
process would be to create some manner of manifest file which is packaged
with the application that describes its current contents.  Then you can have
the application connect to your server periodically to check for a newer
version of the manifest.  If it finds one, it can download the new manifest
and new package, and then trigger the installer.

A lot of this process is already taken care of in products such as
InstallShield, VISE, and the WindowsInstaller service (InstallShield does it
a billion times better imho).  I would personally use one of those products
to create an installer for the application that configures the web site, and
sets up the update engine, which I would implement as a completely
de-coupled part of the whole system.


My .02
Roland Collins

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf
Of Andrew Scott
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 7:14 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [CFCDev] Anyoone one with theory or whitepapers or even some
form of how to

Thanks Barney,

Not what I was looking for, there will be times when what we are working on
will not be ready for distribution. So I was looking at a way to package it
for distribution, that could sit on a server and be hit like Symantec, and
Windows are updated.

Your option would be ideal if that scenario existed for us, and I thought of
that but it isn't what I was looking for. Surely there is a way for a
develop to package a website like this place it one spot and allow for other
users, to check for updates and install if need be.

If you see where I am going, it would mean developers of custom components
tags etc could package there app to the world and allow them the opportunity
to upgrade automatically.

 
Regards
Andrew Scott
Technical Consultant

NuSphere Pty Ltd
Level 2/33 Bank Street
South Melbourne, Victoria, 3205

Phone: 03 9686 0485  -  Fax: 03 9699 7976


-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf
Of Barney Boisvert
Sent: Wednesday, 21 January 2004 4:51 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [CFCDev] Anyoone one with theory or whitepapers or even some
form of how to

We have our main application running on a cluster of machines that obviously
need to stay synced at all times.  We do all our updates on a main machine
(from the staging server), and then use rsync to replicate any changes
across the cluster.  You could probably do the same thing, where your
internal server is the "main" server, and then when changes are made to it,
they are immediately pushed out to all the client machines.

We use a few external JARs that are occasionally updated as well.  That
happens infrequently enough that we still manually initiate the copy, but it
uses the same rsync mechanism to automatically propogate to all servers.

The last piece is a semaphore file that is checked into our CVS repository
and checked by a cron job on each server.  If the file exists, it is deleted
and CF restarted.  We obviously stagger the cron jobs so only one machine is
ever cycling at any given time.

Cheers,
barneyb

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrew Scott
> Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 5:36 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [CFCDev] Anyoone one with theory or whitepapers or even some 
> form of how to
> 
> 
> I was looking at coding a way to update CFC code, here is the 
> scenario.
> 
> We have clients that use a basic framework on their own server, but 
> when we update this framework we have to go and update their systems.
> What I started
> to do was code a way based on version control, that would hit our dev 
> server and find if there was an update and then update the system.
> 
> But the problem is that how would I handle, normal cfm pages (CFC's is 
> easy) and com and java. I would like to see that this sort of thing 
> become a bit more common in the web development of CF but can not find 
> anything to guide me this way.
> 
> Has anyone thought about this, come across article on this or even 
> maybe know how they would approach such and idea... All comments would 
> be appreciated.
> 
>  
> Regards
> Andrew Scott
> Technical Consultant
> 
> NuSphere Pty Ltd
> Level 2/33 Bank Street
> South Melbourne, Victoria, 3205
> 
> Phone: 03 9686 0485  -  Fax: 03 9699 7976
> 
> 
> 
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