Is there any documentation on the philosophy behind the IBM Installation Manager? From the end user's (or customer sys admin's) perspective it introduces complexity since this is another thing to take into consideration when trying to juggle different pieces of IBM software with different versions (and different associated versions IM). Software installation management is typically a function provided by the operating system. What benefit does introducing this additional layer (IBM Installation Manager) in between software and operating system provide? DoorsXLAustralia - Tue Jun 16 23:55:31 EDT 2015 |
Re: What is the purpose of IBM Installation Manager? I would not say that software installation is done by the operating system. There have always been programs that run and programs that install other programs (speaking for Windows, Linux, Dos, ..., not sure about Apple). In recent versions IBM used InstallAnywhere or InstallShield for installation, which have the advantage of also being able to run on multiple platforms, but they have the disadvantage that only one program is installed at one time, the programs do not know from another.. I would say that now, where there are a lot of programs which interact with one another, the installer needs to be more "intelligent", so it needs to know which versions of which programs are installed so that it can detect whether all versions are compatible with one another (think RDS, DOORS client/server, but also jazz/RTC with DOORS connector and all the other jazz related programs).
Just my 2 cts.
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Re: What is the purpose of IBM Installation Manager? Fair enough Mike I guess there has always been installation software, like Installshield. It has just been more transparent so users have not been aware of versions of the installer software I think. Would be good if IM just updated itself to a newer version when you try to install separate newer software which requires a newer version of IM and which comes bundled with that newer version. Currently I think it complains and the user has to update IM as a separate step. That is assuming IM is backwards compatible in that instance so the later version also supports uninstalling and updating the older software already installed with older version of IM (which may not always be the case, I am not sure). |
Re: What is the purpose of IBM Installation Manager? DoorsXLAustralia - Thu Jun 18 00:32:15 EDT 2015 Fair enough Mike I guess there has always been installation software, like Installshield. It has just been more transparent so users have not been aware of versions of the installer software I think. Would be good if IM just updated itself to a newer version when you try to install separate newer software which requires a newer version of IM and which comes bundled with that newer version. Currently I think it complains and the user has to update IM as a separate step. That is assuming IM is backwards compatible in that instance so the later version also supports uninstalling and updating the older software already installed with older version of IM (which may not always be the case, I am not sure). You're right, this would be way better (provided the end users who install the package have access to the Internet, of course, but IM could at least try...), I guess an automatic IM update does not happen as IBM software cannot be downloaded without an IBM account, and the default DOORS user will not have it, or IBM thought that in a bigger company software will not be allowed to update itself without prior tests from the IT department. But I totally agree that working with the Installation Manager adds an annoying extra level of complexity, especially as eclipse based applications take > 150 MB - this looks like a huge overhead for "just an installer". OK, to be fair, similar problems did exist in the past, too. Take IBM Synergy - for installing patches you needed to download a small script "ccm_patch" - and the first step of installing a patch was always "go to the IBM (resp. Telelogic) web site and check whether there is a newer version of the ccm_patch script". The patch did not even have the chance to decide for itself whether the existing ccm_patch script is new enough. Now at least you have an application that at least notices these problems.
Yes, IM seems to be backwards compatible.
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Re: What is the purpose of IBM Installation Manager? So previously I installed RPE 1.3 and RLKS 8.1.4 To do this I had to install IM 1.7.3 Now I want to install DOORS NG version 6 DNG6 requires IM 1.8.x When you try to install IM 1.8 it says you need to uninstall IM 1.7 When you try to uninstall IM 1.7 it says you have to uninstall anything you installed with IM 1.7 first. So to install a new piece of IBM software first you have to uninstall all the IBM software you currently have installed? I guess maybe IM 1.8 will support the reinstallation of RPE 1.3 and RLKS 8.1.4 but I will have to go through the guddle of uninstalling everything just just to find out. Would be good if installing a newer version of IM to support some newer software did not require the uninstallation and reinstallation of every piece of previously installed IBM software! :)
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