Using AppStream to Deploy Packages on Demand for Your Offline Users, Part 3

Now we have two packages ready, we have a front end and a backend server ready, and we even installed one client. Time to see what extended functionality SVS Pro offers!

SVS pro is the streaming component to get our software on our clients. When you deploy software to a client, and especially to an offsite client you need a way to control it.

• You want to stream the packages complete, so the user can work offline
• You want to control the licenses so you don't pay to much.
• You want to be able to stop the software form functioning after some time so the user needs to make a connection to the network.

But you also want to have some reporting to see if software is common used. Our managers want to see everything in a report, so let's take a look what SVS pro can offer to us.

In this Part 3 we are going to walk through all the options in the console, and we are going to explain these to you. After reading this third part you are an advanced SVS pro system maintainer.

Startup your engines and let's give it a go. Open the console. In every screen I show you what option we are in with the black line around it. This is not shown in the actual console, but only to make it easier to read this tutorial.

Component Status:

Click to view.

In the component status, we see our STE with the default Server Group. In the Status field you can see if the services on the various servers are up by the green icon. You are also able to configure the services, start or stop them or restart them. If something is orange or red, this means that the particular services are not running or the console can't read it.

Component Details:

Click to view.

In the Component Details the servers show up. Here you can see some information of the server, and the total amount of users. Also you can select the view Licenses to show the licenses for the component.

Click to view.

When you click on Streaming server it shows the screen above with various settings. In a production environment the fields are not as empty as shown above. The only thing I changed is the refresh Frequency. I set it to 120 seconds. The server is fast, and I do not have a lot of users. In a production environment this can be set to 60 or so.

Schedule Activity:

Click to view.

In the schedule activity screen you can select the desired server and set restart functionality. In my environment I set all services to restart every 96 hours. In a big and busy environment you should consider doing this every 48 or every 24 hours. It will take around 2 minutes to restart, and in this window your environment is not available.

Schedule Summary:

Click to view.

In the screen schedule summary you can check your schedules. In my case I reboot the services every 4 days. Yep, that is 96 hours.

View License:

Click to view.

Click to view.

In view License you can see the license you have added. If you get a tomcat error here, you have probably installed the wrong license. I did! So make sure there are two kind of license. The first one is the PS license. This is for the Packaging Server. The second one is the STS license. This is the streaming server license.

It shows you the activation date, and the expiration date, and you are able to view how many license you have.

Log Access:

Click to view.

In the log access you can select a server, and then view or download the log. This gives you a lot of information about the status of the server and what happened with it. The components have several logs. By selecting a component you can select the log, and view it:

Click to view.

Above you see an example of a console log.

Active Users:

Click to view.

In the tab Active users you can see what users are connected.

Console Setup:

Component:

Click to view.

This screen is already used in Part 1 of this tutorial. You can add and/or modify the various components here.

Server Group:

Click to view.

In a large environment you can maintain more server groups. In this tutorial we have only one. That is shown as the default server group. Grouping of servers makes it easier to find what you need for the various users. You could rename the default server group into Offsite users, and build a second environment for the onsite users for example.

Configuration:

Streaming server:

Click to view.

In Part 1 we used this tab. We added a streaming server, and in this tab we can change settings or even select a different one.

Streamlet Engine:

Click to view.

In Streamlet engine we see the backend server listed. You can change settings in this screen for the backend.

Launch server:

Click to view.

Launchserver is the same as Streaming server, but now we can change settings for the launchserver.

Data Access:

Click to view.

In this screen the data access components are listed.

Server group:

Click to view.

This is one of the most important steps in Part 3. Click on Configure, and follow the steps:

Click to view.

Here you see the ports selected during the installation.

Click on Advanced:

Click to view.

By clicking on the lock in the left you can deselect options. In the right you can change settings. Most important one is the setting Predictive learning. This will enable the server to learn what streamlets are first asked. When you stream Word, the Help file is not commonly asked for. It would be a waste of time when you first stream the Help file. Predictive learning will learn what streamlets are asked first and it will make sure these are streamed first.

Click on External address:

Click to view.

In the External address tab you can make the settings so the components know how to connect to each other. Because I used a router that routes my external address to the internal site I do not use this. In a firewalled environment or in a subnetted environment you have to fill in the appropriate settings.

Click to view.

In the Logging tab you can set the various options for the logs. You can change them as wanted, or even stop logging, which is not a good idea.

Click to view.

In the Tab auto recovery you can set option when the server reboots and even send smtp messages when a server is down or up.

Make sure if you change anything that you save your settings first by clicking the Save button on the bottom of the screen.

User datasource:

My server is up and running. All functionality works. The clients get their packages, and I'm very proud of the solution I build for myself. But the User datasource is only giving me an Apache Catalina Java error. It will not show anything. But it works. And I'm satisfied with it. I think it is because I used the Postgres database that is not supported officially, but if anyone has a different idea? Let me hear it.

Streaming Agent:

Click to view.

Yep, I prepopulate icons and I refresh every 5 minutes. For the offsite solution, set this to Packages, and do a refresh on Every session.

The Provisioning tab is already described in Part 2 of this tutorial. Please take a look at that article for more information.

Only manage license is not in Part 2. So let's take a look at that one:

Click to view.

Here you are able to set a license on the package. It's not what you think it is. You will not be able to give a Office license to the Office package. In this tab you can make sure your application is not published more then you have actual licenses. So click on the Edit next to Abiword under Maximum available:

Click to view.

Now you can set how many licenses you have. SVS Pro ensures there are not more applications available then the 10 I gave in. The 11th user will get a customized message, like I used in this example. Make sure you save the settings.

Now click on Edit under the field: Idle package time to live:

Click to view.

In the example above the package will be deleted from the client after 10 days not being used.

With the buttons allocate license and search license you can find clients that have licenses in use. Here you can also stop a client from using the license so it will be free for the next user.

Reports:

Reports Listing:

In reports listing you can select a report and generate a PDF.

The following reports are available:

• License Descriptor Maximum Usage Report
• Package License Acquisition Failure Report
• Package Uninstall Report
• Application Provisioning Report
• Application Session Report
• Inactive Users Report
• User Provisioning Report
• User Session Report
• User Application Usage report
• User usage Report
• User Package Install-Uninstall Report
• License consumed by user
• Concurrent Sessions Report
• User Group Provisioning Report
• User group Sessions Report
• User group Usage Report
• User group Users' trial Period Report
• Unique client installs
• User /group Provisions.

As you see there a lot of reports built in. Select a report and select the application, group, user or other things that are mentioned, and click on generate. SVS Pro then generates a report in PDF format.

The last two fields in the console we have not mentioned are Console User setup. This is already mentioned in Part 1 where we created a user. General Information lets you ad SMTP settings for sending out emails with the system.

In this Part 3 we explained all the various functions in the console. The fourth and last part of this tutorial will show you the user experience.