Avactis - Application Installer

Avactis – Application Installer allows installing Avactis system consisting of several thousand files to a web server. So, one can avoid time-consuming copying of a great deal of files over FTP.

Customers:
Pentasoft Corp.

Industry sector:
Web, Online store, E-commerce solutions.

PROBLEM:

Avactis Application consists of thousands of files. The typical approach to the installation of an application on a web-server includes the following steps:

• copying all the files over FTP;
• configuration;
• database creation;
• creation of database tables;
• filling the tables with initial data.

This process is rather difficult for a non-professional user. Besides, copying lots of files over FTP is time-consuming. That’s why it was decided to develop a special application to run all the operations mentioned above automatically, asking the user for the essential information only. This application was also to work with archives to reduce the total number of files and to increase the speed of application-to-server copying.

SOLUTION:

We developed an application (Avactis Installer) to compress the whole shopping cart system into one file and to create a distribution package. Now the store owner is to copy only several files and one archive to the web-server. Copying over FTP does not take him/her long then. After that the shopping cart system owner should open a specific web path in his browser. The installer is automatically executed and the full shopping cart system installation is performed.

General component description:

Avactis – Application Installer allows installing Avactis system consisting of several thousand files to a web server. So, one can avoid time-consuming copying of a great deal of files over FTP. Application Installer has the following features:

• verification (write permission in the current installation directory, disk space available on the web host, RAM, PHP and MySQL versions, etc.)
• interactive step-by-step installation wizard;
• database creation and filling of the tables with a timeout protection system. The process of adding records into the tables is divided into iterations, one per second;
• unzipping of the necessary files is also timeout protected. The archive is a file consisting of consecutively written source files compressed with PHP function gzdeflate() (GZip algorithm) and converted into base64 to prevent deletion of line ending characters (Mac, Win, *nix) while copying in text mode over FTP;
• directory and file structure creation according to an array containing full target file names, their size, offsets in the archive file;
• once the installation is finished the application deletes itself thus preventing accidental reinstallation by either the shop owner or a third party.

The focus is on the project life-cycle, from estimate and budget submittals and approval management, to vendor invoice and payment tracking. Details such as discounts, negative value orders, deductions, etc. are all included.

The system also serves as the primary portal and knowledge base for the company, providing company announcements (general, daily, executive), calendar functions, extensive searches and filters, document uploads, and many other features.

Administrative features allow complete customization of business and accounting domains, enabling the system to adapt to a broad range of customers.

Platform:

Web
Avactis Shopping Cart

Main technologies and libraries used:

PHP, MySQL, Apache, cURL, OpenSSL, GMP.