At my current work, we are redesigning the entire core application which is basically springMVC, ejb3, SpringF, AJAX, etc.
Our clients are like 60, that uses the same application depending on the acquired license.
We are thinking to develop an application that can be simply installed locally on their places.
Something like: setup.exe which will install the Application Server, install the EAR and use a light weight database, something like Derby.
I have few questions:
Also we are planning to provide "modules" via the same application client, that will have some JSP and WebServices consumer. For example:
When acquired the Transfer Module, the webservice will provide something like:
<module>
<name>Transfer</name>
<parameters>
<parameter type="text">Name</parameter>
<parameter type="number">account</parameter>
<parameter type="currency">DO</parameter>
<parameter type="number">To Account</parameter>
<parameter type="text">Description</parameter>
</parameters>
</module>
That will render, first a dynamic JSP page, and base on that validated and then sent to a webservice.
I can think of so many reasons to not to do this. But I am sure you have analyzed your requirements and have come up with such a need.
have few questions:
Have you done something like that?
NO
how is your app working?
We did have something similar, but not on an per client machine
basis because of system hardware requirements in the first place but it was more like a client server. Like an ATM machine with a server to talk to the main banking server.
Which application server did you use?
Preferably JBOSS application server or Tomcat with light configuration.
How did you coded the auto update service?
On server startup you could always download the jar and copy it to a place if needed. And Licenses?
Several strategies including downloading pre-built ears or specific license keys.