Update a Deployed Application

To deploy a new version of an application, or just an updated set of objects, you need to copy the new objects (in UARs or folders) to the appropriate locations, and restart the Uniface Router, application servers, and client applications.

Under the certain conditions, it is possible to do this without shutting down the Uniface Router and application servers (known as hot deployment):

  • All Uniface Servers are guaranteed to exit within a few days, either because clients use exclusive servers, or shared services are started with /maxreq or /maxidle to ensure that they will end.
  • Client applications are regularly restarted, for example, if they are normally started in the morning and closed in the evening. The client application must be restarted for it to pick up the updates.
  • The upgraded objects do not include signature changes for components on the server that are activated by remote clients.

Note:  If a client uses more than one Uniface Server, it is possible that one client has access to old versions of the components and another uses the new version. This is usually undesirable.

To update an application without restarting everything:

  1. Package the application or object in one or more UAR files. For more information, see Create Uniface Archive Files.
  2. Edit the assignment files of the application or Uniface Server to add the location of the new UAR files to the [RESOURCES] section.

    For example, if the updated application objects are in myapp.updates_20081205.uar, add this file as the first entry under [RESOURCES] in the myapp.asn file:

    ;myapp.asn

[RESOURCES]
c:\myapp\myapp.updates_20081205.uar.uar
c:\myapp\MyApp.uar
c:\myapp\usys.uar
c:\myapp\usys@usa.uar
c:\myapp\usysicon.uar

    If objects are not found in the first .uar, Uniface looks in the next .uar and so on until it finds the required object. Thus, objects that were not updated can still be located.

    Uniface applications and servers that are already running continue to use the existing .uar (or resources folder), but newly-started ones use the updated application. For client/server applications, this allows clients to be gradually moved to the updated application.

  3. When no Uniface servers remain that use the old .uar file, and the file is no longer required, you can delete it from the [RESOURCES] section.
  4. To revert to the old version, remove the new .uar file locations from the assignment file.