What ways are conceivable to install AIE-Tools?

Florian · ‎03-17-2014

Hi,

out of my blog it started a discussion why the installing of AIE-Tools is a lot of work.

Can it be done in an easier way?

In my opinion there are two ways:

First way is to have it, as delivered right now.

In my opinion it is a good way, for sure, not that easy if you do it the first time, but it is ok (my personal view)

Second way: Get a "All-in-One" Package delivered.

One download with a installer included, Start it -- be happy.

What ways are conveivable to install AIE-Tools, what do you think would be good (or the best) way to get the AIE-Tools installed?

A colleague and me just tried today, if it is a possible scenario to create a "out of the box" scenario. It is possible, so that means in bigger companies there is a scenario, that one goes through the installing-process and create the "Initial-version".

This advantage is just possible for the AIE Tool and not for the HANA-Studio. Maybe this is a good way to onboard others fast and easy.

Regards

Florian

ThFiedler · ‎03-18-2014

Our clear strategy for installing the SAP Development Tools for Eclipse is via the updatesite:

SAP Development Tools for Eclipse

As you can see in my blog also the HANA Tools are now available there. So you get all tools that you need in one place.

We are currently working on a paper that describes how you can setup a company internal updatesite for the eclipse tools. The result is than similar to https://tools.hana.ondemand.com

The advantage is that you as an owner of the updatesite can decide when a new version should be shared within your company.

Kind Regards,

Thomas.

Florian · ‎03-18-2014

Thank you Thomas for the reply.

Stephen, see the answer from Thomas above. This sounds like a very good solution, isn't it?

In my opinion this is a good way to handle the Tool.

Regards

Florian

stephenjohannes · ‎03-18-2014

That's still too complicated and that's the problem. Why is SAP making our life more difficult in the name of having "open source tools"? Does SAP not understand that the average ABAP developer in their install base has no desire to become an sysadmin to install the tool, nor does most companies would want to support that messy procedure across many many users:

You and the rest of SAP need to read this:

Just because other people do stuff in the open source community and SAP is trying following industry standards does not make it a good idea if you are making it more complicated. Is it SAP's goal to invoke more pain on their customers, because following that strategy looks like making it easier for SAP at the expense of the install base?

Take care,

Stephen

ThFiedler · ‎03-18-2014

Hi Stephen,

can you explain to me what is too complicated for you?

As the eclipse platform is not an SAP owned product it is clear that you have to install (in that case this means unzip a small zip package) it from www.eclipse.org

After that you enter the updatesite URL in the eclipse installation manager and install the SAO specific tools that you need for your work.

This procedure should not take longer than 10 minutes. All updates after tzhe intial setup will come automatically to you for free.

Regards,

Thomas.

former_member182421 · ‎03-18-2014

Sorry to interfere, but I totally agree with Stephen, It wouldn't be easier having a wizard which installs eclipse+AET? like you have it to install the SAP HANA studio, or I'm confused and with SAP HANA studio do you need to deal with the same? I got used to install the plugins because I did it several time, but I still need the pdf to remeber which plugins I need, latest versions are first int he marketplace then on the site, one good example is switching Eclipse version I had Juno, with all the plugins and everything worked fine, then Kepler was released so....here we go again.

Cheers!

Luis

PD: I would say I love Eclipse and the investment in time worth it, except for the WebUI side but I'm 30...I would like to see if I'll have the same amount of patience when I'm 50.

ThFiedler · ‎03-18-2014

Hi Luis,

you don't need the pdf to install the ADT plugins. The missing eclipse plugins that are listed in the pdf are automatically installed during the install of the ADT plugins.

Regards,

Thomas.

gregorw · ‎03-18-2014

Hi Stephen,

I think if SAP would provide a pre-packaged bundle it would always lag behind the latest Eclipse release. It's great that there is a public update site.

One thing I've tested last week for easy distribuiton of a pre-packaged Eclipse with ADT was to setup Eclipse with ATD on my Desktop and then just copy the Eclipse folder to anothers Users Workstation. After the first start the only adjustment that was needed was to adjust the Workspace path.

I think if Eclipse with ADT needs to be rolled among the developers you should talk with the guys who take care about the SAP GUI roll-out and find a solution how the software can be distributed and updated. Perhaps SAP could provide a best practice as I would hope not every Business Suite developer does the manual install.

Best regards

Gregor

dilorenzo · ‎03-18-2014

Hi Thomas,

I heard at a ADT Code Jam, that it is because of SAP Legal that there are different ways to install ADT, but I think that it would be better to delete all documents and download links for this "service.sap.com-way" of installing.

The update site install is really good and not to complicated.

But I must admit that the first time I saw this way to install ADT was, when I received my preparation-mail for CodeJam.

Regards,

Dominik

stephenjohannes · ‎03-18-2014

If I only have one or two developers that need access to the tool then the install procedure is annoying at worst. The problem is that if I want to do an enterprise deployment then I don't want developers having to go through this update process.

The ideal situation would for SAP provide tools like they did for the SAP GUI that allows building of enterprise deployment packages for the software. A tool like the NWSapSetupServer that would allow either use of a installation server or build a predefined install package would be great.

You have to remember most companies don't want to give anyone admin rights or allow for everyone to install software of their choosing on a user machine. It really does cause support issues.

Take care,

Stephen

stephenjohannes · ‎03-18-2014

No that is not true for Eclipse Juno as I tried to install the ADT plugin's and it complained and stopped because the other elcipse plugins were not installed. I was using the update site method to download everything.

former_member182421 · ‎03-18-2014

That's what I meant!

Florian · ‎03-18-2014

That is a good point. I phoned with a friend of mine today and talked about the discussion here. He has to wait six weeks till he get the permission to install it, such situations shows the discussion here in another light.

Very good, that I hadn't to go through that process. In such cases I also would say yes to a install-package.

~Florian

Florian · ‎03-18-2014

That is the way I mentioned in my first post. But I also have to agree with the others here, what if you are in a company just one developer is sitting next to you. Then it is not that much time to save with this solution

Why don't organize an updatesite next to this with a full-version everything already in?

~Florian

ThFiedler · ‎03-19-2014

Hi Gregor,

you hit exactly the point. We had this one shot installation in the past with the Net Weaver Developer Studio. All SAP plugins including a prepackaged eclipse were installed on the developer PC.

Today the developer studio is still on Eclipse 3.6 (!!!!) because of the dependencies an upgrade is too expensive. Therefore it was from the beginning of the project our strict guideline to the developers to decouple the eclipse delivery from the SAP plugin delivery and secondly to decouple the different SAP plugins from each other. So that we able to independently patch and upgarde the components.

Regards,

Thomas.

ThFiedler · ‎03-19-2014

Hi Stephen,

yes, you are right. In an enterprise scenario we recommend to provide an own company updatesite similar to our SAP Updatesite. Then it is up to the administrator when to push a new version to the developers in the company. We will prepare a document that describes how to setup an own updatesite.

Regards,

Thomas.

stephenjohannes · ‎03-19-2014

Thomas,

That updatesite concept still violates most rules on having people install software on their own. What is really needed is a why to generate a prepackaged installer from a update repository. Most companies won't mind maintaining their own "installation server", but they need a way to deploy that does not involve having the developer install the software.

You don't even have to deliver the components in single package for all the reasons, but we need an installer tool that can build a package.

My only question is can you trigger/install eclipse add-on's in a background via script deployment. If you could do that then desktop support groups would be able to write package install scripts that automatically install the updates.

Take care,

Stephen

Florian · ‎03-19-2014

Hi Stephen, you needn't to install anything if you don't want. Just to copy all the .jar into the plugin folder and restart eclipse --> Done

So you can configure it with a script to roll updates to the users. Just the path has to be known, but that shouldn't be a problem

~Florian