Multi-platform network-based software distribution
First Claim
1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with computer-readable instructions for automatically installing a software application on a plurality of remote target computers from a central repository, the computer-readable instructions comprising instructions for causing a computer to:
- determine an operating system type for each one of the plurality of remote target computers;
access a library of installation functions at the central repository, the installation functions being not specific to any operating system;
pass the operating system type as an argument to one or more of the installation functions; and
execute one or more of the installation functions on each one of the plurality of remote target computers using the operating system type for each target computer, wherein the installation functions search the central repository for execution objects to execute using a descending level of version specificity associated with the execution objects.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Methods and systems are disclosed for automatically installing software applications on multiple target computers having different computing platforms from a central location. The methods and systems provide an infrastructure comprising a centralized repository and server and a plurality of remote target computers. The centralized repository stores platform-specific installation files for each software application and computing platform of interest, and one or more non-platform-specific deploy jobs for installing the software applications. The non-platform-specific deploy jobs allows a user to automatically install one or more software applications on any target computer regardless of computing platform, and to reuse any installation logic that may have been custom-developed for the software applications. A common command syntax is created that may be used to define and execute the deploy jobs across the multiple computing platforms.
-
Citations
16 Claims
-
1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with computer-readable instructions for automatically installing a software application on a plurality of remote target computers from a central repository, the computer-readable instructions comprising instructions for causing a computer to:
-
determine an operating system type for each one of the plurality of remote target computers; access a library of installation functions at the central repository, the installation functions being not specific to any operating system; pass the operating system type as an argument to one or more of the installation functions; and execute one or more of the installation functions on each one of the plurality of remote target computers using the operating system type for each target computer, wherein the installation functions search the central repository for execution objects to execute using a descending level of version specificity associated with the execution objects. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
-
-
6. A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with computer-readable instructions for automatically installing software on a remote target computer from a central location, the computer-readable instructions comprising instructions for causing a computer to:
-
execute a first installation package for a first software application on the remote target computer, wherein the first installation package searches the central location for execution objects to execute using a descending level of version specificity associated with the execution objects; determine whether an installation condition has been satisfied on the remote target computer, wherein the installation condition is not specific to any operating system; execute a second installation package for a second software application on the remote target computer in response to the installation condition being satisfied; and override any errors that may occur during the executing of either the first or second installation packages. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9, 10)
-
-
11. A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with computer-readable instructions for automatically installing software applications to remote target computers from a deploy repository, the computer-readable instructions comprising instructions for causing a computer to:
-
deploy a deploy agent to each one of the remote target computers, each deploy agent configured to connect a respective one of the remote target computers to the deploy repository and to determine an operating system type of the respective one of the remote target computers, wherein each deploy agent is not specific to any operating system; map a relationship between a deploy agent, one or more deploy jobs, and one or more software applications; and execute a deploy job on each one of the remote target computers via a respective deploy agent using the operating system type therefor, each deploy job being stored only on the deploy repository and configured to install the one or more software applications on a respective one of the remote target computers, wherein the deploy agent searches the deploy repository for the one or more software applications to install using a descending level of version specificity associated with the one or more software applications. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
-
Specification