CPAM with TWW

Challenge

In an IT organization which administrate all kind of computer systems, following abstracted diagram shows the systems are segregated into varied sub-systems islands by NIS name services. Each NIS islands has its own set of accounts, netgroups and varied same software.

NIS islands in an IT within an organization.

Oftentimes we found ourselves got lock-in by a particular OS because of a few software applications run only on that OS. Adopting the CPAM (cross-platform application management) concept with the right implementation tools can prepare your application or IT information systems to be more portable. You don't have to stay with a particular OS if you don't want to.

Also it is the software applications that run on computer that we need from computer.

The limited human computing resource is better to be spent on improving quality of software instead of on porting same software to all kind of different OS.

This book explains the CPAM concept and a solution implemented by an OpenSource support company (TWW Inc.) This solution can be used to develop and manage OpenSource and commercial applications across operating systems in a consistent way.

One example of application that can be installed across OS platforms is Oracle database server. It provide customer an easy and consistent way to install Oracle server. No matter which supported OS you want to install Orcale server on, runInstaller is the universal command to install oracle server. But runInstall can only use to install Oracle application. What about other application that need to be installed across platforms ? So we need a cross-platform package management system that can provide same command to manage all kinds of applications.

In this three subsets book, We introduce the CPAM concept and one of its best implementations. Then we introduce how to use applications that created by using TWW HPMS toolsets. Also we provide best practices for consumers to install and use CPAM applications.

In developer's guide we focus on the TWW HPMS itself and provide guidance when you want to port the tool to an unsupported OS. We will analyze the TWW tool set and other similar tool sets.

In Reference Manual we provide a FAQ, HOWTO and a brief overview about all kinds of package management systems.

Solution

We hope your IT system will looks like following before you can really consolidate down to one or two OS.

Challenge

Solution

Contents