IBM pursues software installation standard

IBM on Friday is unveiling technology intended to reduce complexity in software installation and packaging and has submitted it to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for consideration as an industry standard. Dubbed Solution Installation for Autonomic Computing, the technology enables software developers and software vendors to improve the installation and support experience and simplify the software packaging process, according to IBM. Developers would be able to build packaged software for installation on a variety of platforms.

"One of the observations is that half of the problems that are surfacing in today's IT environments are stemming from configuration issues," said David Bartlett, director of autonomic computing at IBM. The rise of heterogeneous environments has created issues related to application interdependencies, Bartlett said. IBM with Solution Installation is focusing on reducing the complexity around this issue. "No longer are products just installed by themselves or work by themselves. They're part of a larger solution," he said.

Led by IBM and Novell, the technology has been submitted to the W3C as the "Solution Installation Schema Submission." IBM is seeking formation of a cross-industry standards committee within W3C to formalize a specification for software packaging. An XML-based packaging schema featured in the Software Installation technology is intended to lay the foundation for self-configuring capabilities in "on demand" infrastructures, in which infrastructures are self-configuring. InstallShield Software and Zero G Software also are partners on the proposed industry standard.

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