IIP installation status and progress

An integrated installation package (IIP) contains an application programming interface (API) which allows an application to launch the IIP installer and retrieve information pertaining to the running install. The API provides a standardized way to retrieve installation status and progress.

New feature: A new API supports programmatic queries of the installation status and progress of an appserver installation that is part of an integrated installation package (IIP) created with the IBM Installation Factory

 

Installation status and progress

The installation status in WAS has been historically captured inside the installation log file. Products and applications that extended the appserver and required its installation status had to use various means to examine the appserver installation log file. The new API supports retrieval of the installation status of the application server in a standard way.

The API also supports querying the installation progress. In previous versions of the appserver there were no functions implemented to allow an application that launched the appserver installer to retrieve information pertaining to the running installation. For example, on Windows operating systems the silent installation command returns instantly, and the caller is unable to determine when the installation has completed. Again, the only place that this information was recorded was in the installation log file and therefore, if a product or customer needed to get information about the progress of an appserver installation they needed to parse the log file.

Relying on the log file also involves certain complications because the log file location can vary. In some cases the log file is compressed into a different file format by the installer depending on the outcome of the installation process. Products that extend the appserver no longer need to create functions or scripts to locate, open, and parse the log file to determine the installation status. The API provides a standard way to retrieve both the installation status and installation progress.

The API requires that the appserver installer be contained within an IIP and is unavailable for the standalone appserver installer.

 

IIP interface

This API is an interface between an application and an IIP and therefore requires that the WebSphere Application Sever installation be contained within an IIP and cannot be used with the WebSphere Application Server installer directly. Essentially this API is a collection of interfaces for the IIP controller’s implementation classes. The API interface leverages the IIP ability to launch an appserver installation and then retrieve the information such as the install status and install progress.

The API works with any installer that becomes IIP enabled because it interfaces with the IIP only and allows the IIP to handle the interactions with the included product installers. Therefore, interfacing with the IIP instead of the actual installer makes the IIP very reusable.

We can only use the API with an IIP. The API is specifically designed to target, but is not limited to, an IIP that contains only one contribution. The API uses the IIP controller to launch an IIP and provides access to objects used by the controller to run the IIP such as the IIPResults object which stores installation results for the contributions within the IIP. The API does not provide the functionality to create an IIP. However, once an IIP has been created, the API can then be used to run that IIP and retrieve the installation status and progress. The API only returns control after the IIP has finished.

Since the API is the interface for the IIP controller, it does not have the ability to launch the IIP installer in GUI mode. The default GUI is a separate object that interacts with the IIP controller using this API and also requires the Eclipse framework to run. Therefore any application using the API is in essence replacing the default GUI. However, WAS ND contributions that are contained within the IIP will be able to run in both silent and GUI mode.

For API details and examples, refer to .



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Last updated Nov 11, 2010 1:01:09 PM CST