The Essential Project Team are pleased to announce that the new wizard-based installer for Essential Architecture Manager is now available. This simplifies the installation process, performing all the unpacking and installation of the Essential Project software components for both stand-alone and multi-user installations. The installer also provides the capability to generate automatic installation scripts, e.g. when installing on multiple user workstations in a multi-user scenario.

The new, version 1.2, release of Essential Architecture Manager is delivered in a single download package which contains both the Essential Project software components and the installer.

Simplified

Having established that there was both interest in and demand for Essential Architecture Manager, it was clear that the manual installation process of the Essential Project software needed to be made simpler, using a familiar wizard-based installer. The new release of Essential Architecture Manager is now available as a single, self-extracting, wizard-based installation program.

When the installation completes successfully, the installer can create an automatic install script to replicate the installation - including all the options and file paths chosen - on other machines. This can be particularly helpful when installing the user workstations in a multi-user installation.

Multi-Platform

Essential Architecture Manager builds on open-source Java-based platforms which means that it has a very wide operating system and hardware platform coverage. The new Java-based installer ensures that a single software package can be managed and maintained that covers all platforms used by the Essential Project Community.

Complex Environments

However, being able to install and execute on all platforms is not enough. Essential Architecture Manager has to be able to be installed cleanly into both existing Protege and Apache Tomcat installations, as well as the fresh environments of these platforms installed specifically for Essential Architecture Manager. Some environments may have multiple versions of Protege or Apache Tomcat running, so the installer asks the user to select which installation the Essential software components are to be installed into, having first tried to find both Protege and Apache Tomcat in the 'normal' locations.

Stand Alone and Multi-User

The single installer program not only covers all operating systems and platforms but is used for both stand-alone and multi-user installations of Essential Architecture Manager. The wizard guides the user through the selection of the appropriate packs depending on the type of installation that is being performed.

Of course, a multi-user installation is always more complex than stand-alone, involving the configuration of the server which introduces a range of new possible variations and options, such as databases. Revised installation guides take the user through the multi-user setup, selecting and installing the required packs from the installer.

All-in-one Install?

To keep the management of the Essential Project software as efficient as possible, our strategy for installers and software packaging is not to distribute and install the underlying open-source platform.

Essential Architecture Manager builds on a platform based on Protege and Apache Tomcat. However, in line with our strategy, the installer does not include either Protege or Apache Tomcat. This means that The Essential Project can avoid the need to maintain platform-specific installers of the Essential Project software. Downloading and installing Protege and Tomcat is deferred to the Protege and Apache websites and the correct, platform-specific installer of each.

Download the new version

If you have not already, download Essential Architecture Manager now.

To update your existing Essential Architecture Manager to take advantage of the lastest features, download the update installer from the Updates section of the Download page.