About the Exercises
Introduction
Objects created in these exercises use a prefix if ii_ for object names, where ii are replaced by the students initials. If a unique set of initials are used both for new component names and for deployment Company and Application Name, then many students could use the same copy of Visual LANSA.
The Application to be Deployed
Each set of exercises deploy a supplied application which is copied and then deployed using the Deployment Tool. The application maintains an employee file which is part of the shipped Visual LANSA demonstration material.
Steps are included to emulate real application development, covering installing Version 1, changing the application which is then deployed via a Patch. Making a further change to the application main form, followed by creating and installing Version 2.
The application is deployed as both a client server application which may connect to an IBM i or a Windows server, and also as a standalone desktop Windows application. A deployment using a Just in Time server is also included.
Tutorial versus Real World
The exercises in this tutorial are designed to simplify deployment for training purposes and to minimize the setup involved.
Build Machine
It is essential that your own deployment uses a build machine. This is a PC with a Visual LANSA installation which is dedicated to assembling and deploying applications. As well as ensuring that all the latest and required components have been moved to this machine, the build machine approach also ensures that Product Version and File Version and GUID are all preserved and used for the next version or patch which needs to be deployed. See the for more information on the reasons for using a Windows build machine.
Deploying your own client server to an IBM i server application would involve:
- Deploy the server applications to the IBM i server via LANSA export and import.
- Deploying the Windows client application to a file server or terminal server.
- Setup a shortcut on user desktop linking to the application top level form on the file server
- Or setting up the user desktop by running the Network Client install file provided by the file server deployment.
- Setup a Just in Time Server installation and deploy all application client software to the file server linked to the JIT server. Subsequent patches and new versions can be deployed by simply updating the JIT Server only.
Your own deployment to a Windows server would involve:
- Use the Deployment Tool to deploy the Data/Application server applications and files to a Windows server.
- Optionally create and install the client application to a file server or terminal server.
- Setup a shortcut on the user desktops linking to the client application top level form on the file server
- Or setup the user desktop by running the Network Client install file provided by the file server deployment
- Optionally create Data/Application server deployment which includes all client applications
- Set up user desktop shortcut to the top level form on the Data/Application server.
- Or setup the desktop using the Network Client install file from the Data/Application server deployment.
- Optionally set up a Just in Time server.
- Deploy both the Data/Application server applications and the client application with automatic updates via the JIT Server.