System and method for facilitating installing software

• US 20080028392A1
• Filed: 07/24/2007
• Published: 01/31/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/25/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Sun, Ke Wei, Chen, Ying, Qiu, Jie, Li, Ying
• Granted Patent: US 8,407,694 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/175
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation

Abstract

A system and method for facilitating installing software includes steps and means for identifying whether the phase of a software installing process changes and, responsive to the identifying a change in the phase of the software installing process, executing an additional task of the current phase of the software installing process.

Claims

1. A system for facilitating installing software, comprising:

an identifier for identifying whether the phase of a software installing process changes; and

a task scheduler for, responsive to the identifier identifying a change in the phase of the software installing process, executing an additional task of the current phase of the software installing process.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein said additional task comprises checking for dependency and conflicts between the software and other software.

3. The system according to claim 1, wherein said additional task comprises at least one of:

patching the software;

installing a piece of software; and

uninstalling a piece of software.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein said additional task comprises at least one of:

adding configurations in a configuration file;

changing configurations in the configuration file; and

deleting configurations in the configuration file.

5. The system according to claim 1, further comprising:

a symptom reporter for reporting failure occurring during the execution of said additional task.

6. The system according to claim 1, further comprising:

an updater for obtaining update data at least comprising the additional task and script for executing the additional task.

7. The system according to claim 6, wherein said update data comes from a packager and distributor.

8. The system according to claim 6, wherein said update data comprises at least one of:

a datasheet from a software repository, artifacts from a software repository, a datasheet from a solution repository, artifacts from a solution repository, a datasheet from a symptom database and artifacts from a symptom database.

9. The system according to claim 8, wherein said symptom database comprises problem checking scripts and corresponding problem resolving scripts.

10. A method for facilitating installing software, comprising the steps of:

identifying whether the phase of a software installing process changes; and

responsive to identification of a phase change of the software installing process, executing an additional task of the current phase of the software installing process.

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein said additional task comprises checking for dependency and conflicts between the software and other software.

12. The method according to claim 10, wherein said additional task comprises at least one of:

patching the software;

installing a piece of software; and

uninstalling a piece of software.

13. The method according to claim 10, wherein said additional task comprises at least one of:

adding configurations in a configuration file;

changing configurations in the configuration file; and

deleting configurations in the configuration file.

14. The method according to claim 10, further comprising the step of:

reporting failure occurring during the execution of said additional task.

15. The method according to claim 10, further comprising the step of:

obtaining update data at least comprising the additional task and script for executing the additional task.

16. The method according to claim 15, wherein said update data comprises at least one of:

a datasheet from a software repository, artifacts from a software repository, a datasheet from a solution repository, artifacts from a solution repository, a datasheet from a symptom database and artifacts from a symptom database.

17. The method according to claim 16, wherein said symptom database comprises problem checking scripts and corresponding problem resolving scripts.

18. A computer program product comprising computer executable code stored on a computer readable medium for performing method steps for facilitating installing software, wherein the method comprises the steps of:

identifying whether the phase of a software installing process changes; and

responsive to identification of a phase change of the software installing process, executing an additional task of the current phase of the software installing process.