Asta Binary Patcher
ASTA is fully committed to thin client applications with zero administration. To this end, the ASTA AutoUpdate
Process allows for remote clients, when logging onto an ASTA server to have a version check performed on the server
and if a more recent version of the client application is available, that version can be streamed down to remote
clients, replace the existing application and relaunch the application. This process is described with examples
and screen shots in the AstaAutoUpdate Tutorial.
This same technique is available on PDA devices also, where a updated Palm prc or WinCE EXE is made available on
ASTA SkyWire servers and then streamed down to the handheld device when
a client is authenticated at the server.
For low volume servers or over local lans, this works quite well but as user counts start to rise into the hundreds, it could be quite common for 100 or so users to hit a server at the same time, streaming down a 1MB + EXE to remote clients. Quite a distraction for an ASTA server designed to serve up database queries!
For high volume servers, or just for more efficient use of resources, it is quite easy to use a remote Web Server like IIS (Internet Informormation Server) to manage the most recent client application. This technique is described in the Asta HTTP Update tutorial complete with code examples and even includes a progress bar and the ability to abort the download.
The ultimate solution would be to use some technology that could apply a binary patch on the original client EXE to bring it update to date with the current version. Thus, instead of a 1MB client application a 200K patch file could be sent to clients. Combining this with the HTTP download technique you have the best of both worlds: no resources used from the ASTA server and a much smaller file streaming down to remote clients.
The ASTA Binary Patcher allows any 2 binary files to be compared and a "patch" file created that can be applied to the first binary file using a small console program (patcher.exe). A GUI program, or the AstaBinaryPatchManager.exe is used to create the patches. Then the console program (patcher.exe) is used to apply the patches.
Screen shots of the AstaBinaryPatch Manager are available.
Download an evaluation version
The AstaBinaryPatchManager is $299 and can be purchased on line as item # 5340 or direct from ASTA.