Molu Software Update FAQ
From Mophilly Support
General Questions
Why use the Molu Service?
Molu Service provides a professional level of service to your clients and puts your product in league with products from Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, and others. It reduces your cost to deploy updates and fixes, and eliminates tech support for update installation. And it reduces the cost and effort required of your end users to keep your software up to date.
How does it work?
Using the Molu Service Developer Tool, you upload your latest revisions to the Molu Service server. In the end user deployment you include the Molu Client. When the user selects "Software Update" in your application, the local Molu Client contacts the server and asks if there is an update available for your application. If there is, only the revised classes are downloaded and the local application is updated. By downloading only modified classes, the smallest amount of data transfer takes place, giving the user a fast, pleasant experience.
How would I sell Molu Service to my customers?
Molu Service is an enhancement to your customer service efforts. For example, you might offer the Molu Service as a premium service for which you receive an additional fee each year plus a one time set up fee. Another approach is to absorb the cost into the annual support fees you currently charge to enhance your existing customer service plans.
How much does it cost?
In general, there is only the monthly fee. However, the monthly bill includes a charge based on the data transfer volume, plus applicable license and service fees. From time to time, we offer special programs in which these fees are rolled into a convenient price plan for a specified period. Please refer to the current price list for up to date information.
How do I calculate the data transfer volume?
Data transfer volume is sum of the number of bytes of the classes updated multiplied by the number of downloads. For example, consider an update of two window classes plus a new menu. Omnis Studio refers to the size of a class as "disksize", so disksize is the number of bytes in a class.
| Class | Disksize |
|---|---|
| Window A | 8,324 |
| Window B | 28,560 |
| Menu C | 1,450 |
| Total | 38,334 |
Next multiply the total disksize by the number of downloads. If you have 1,000 end users and each downloads the update once, then the total data transfer volume is 38,334,000 bytes. This is roughly 36 Megabytes for the update for all users.
How does the billing work?
When you set up your account you will be asked to provide a credit card and execute a monthly billing agreement. Each month we will email a statement to you and bill your credit card. If the charge is refused, we will notify you. You have ten days to resolve the charge to avoid disruption of service.
What is the cancellation policy?
You may cancel the service at any time with written notice after the initial term of service. The initial term of service is six months. Thereafter the term of service is month to month. Should you need to cancel prior to the end of the initial term of service you will be charged the total fees due for six months less any amounts you have paid to date.
What technical support is offered?
We help you with server availability issues. We can check on the server state, test it for proper operation and verify whether or not you are connecting with the server. Given the nature of the internet, we cannot provide unlimited free assistance to resolve to connectivity issues of the end user or from the developer's tool.We can also check on the presence of data blocks, which are the encrypted binaries of your application code, but we cannot verify the content of the data blocks. While the server performs a check on data block integrity, the content is your responsibility.We do provide support services to you for all end user issues on an hourly fee basis. We can augment your support team and/or work with a client directly with a simple contractual arrangement.
Do you help with implementation?
Since the interface and implementation is entirely up to you, we provide implementation assistance at standard consulting rates. Implementation is easy, we promise. Please take a look at the instructions for the Molu Client you want to use.
My clients manage software deployment in their organization.
Under special license, the Molu Server can be installed at the client site and linked to your Molu Service account. Installation, maintenance and deployment management will be included in the license agreement at standard consulting rates.
Can I see a demonstration?
Of course. We are happy to provide a web demo or arrange a proof of concept for you. Please contact our sales team via request form or call (619) 444-9210.
Security and Privacy
What about network security?
These days, any network administrator worth his or her salt is concerned with security. The Molu Service is hosted at a registered domain using a proper URL so it can be easily "whited listed" for access by end user machines.
Is the data secure during transfer?
All data transferred between the Molu Service and the client is encrypted using a private key method, then encoded for safe transfer through the internet.
Can others see my code or data?
No. All the data you upload is encrypted before it is sent to the server, and it is only decrypted by the client. The only exception to these is three specific key values used to order the data.
Do you contact my clientele?
No. There is no need for us to contact your clients. We are willing to work with you to assist your client if you request it and there is a valid reason for doing so. We provide support to you, and you provide support to your clients.
Do you collect or store personal information?
No personal information is collected by Molu Service. Only unique identifiers are used for administration and management of the system. Your application updates are stored in encrypted binaries in a private repository that strictly prohibits execution and access by unauthorized users.That said, what is in the encrypted binaries is up to you. Therefore, you may have included private data in the data stream. Molu Service only stores the encrypted binaries, and nothing else. We do not store the private keys to your data.The following questions and comments come from real people, from our correspondence about Molu Service. While we stand behind every answer, we are not responsible for the questions or comments. We include them here because, well, if one person thought of it another might too.
Common Concerns
Our users do not have technical resources on site.
This is precisely the circumstance Molu Service was designed to address. Using Molu eliminates need to build installers, mail CDs, set up FTP download sites, and all the tech support calls that go with those methods.
We already use FTP
FTP has numerious problems. First it is a security hole that many savvy sys admin block due to the network security issues. Even with SSL+FTP, you are faced with many user permission problems as well as the network security issues. With the Molu Service you won’t need FTP for software updates anymore.
Molu Service moves the least amount of data possible to update your end user installations. It can, of course, move huge files if you need to do so. Moving many small files is vastly superior over the internet, greatly reducing the chance of corrupt files.
Only 70% of our users are on-line
This is true for many software vendors. Yet Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, Symantec and dozens of others offer this type of service. They do so for several reasons, which include
- Professional service to a large percentage of their customers
- Reduce complexity and cost of updates for the customer
- Reduce the cost of providing updates to the customer
Of the 70%, one third of them cannot find the mouse.
To be sure, supporting end users has its challenges. We have worked very hard to make this as simple as “Select the menu command, now click the button.” Not one bit harder than that. Even people who hate your software are very likely to appreciate the Molu Software Update service.
If we have a major bug, we have to notify the users anyway.
True enough. However, it is very simple to have your application check for new updates silently upon startup and present the user with an alert dialog. Of course, you don’t have to do it this way if you don’t want to.
I do not have time to implement Molu Client.
Adding Molu to your application takes only 15 minutes. We handle the set up of your account on the Molu server. Learning the developer’s tool takes only 15 minutes. All the necessary instructions are here on the web site. Our marketing guy says you cannot afford to not implement Molu Client.
The internet is slow and dangerous.
Molu Service uses a light weight XML protocol. The servers are fast Linux or MacOS X machines running multi-threaded processes. So uploading your application binaries is fast; an application with 22 MB of source code comprised of 2200 classes is uploaded in under 10 minutes. End user download is fast too; the typical update takes only two or three minutes. Plus all the data is encrypted before transmission.
Molu Client for Omnis Studio
Is it a lot of work to integrate?
You need to add only one window to your application, modify a menu to access the window then place some externals into the Omnis runtime directory. Integration can be completed in under 15 minutes. No third party database connection software is needed.
How do I integrate this in my Omnis application?
Molu Client is an Omnis library that manages all of the communication with the server. There is one external component that also must be included.The user interface for this is also completely under your control. The developer decides whether to check upon startup, provide a menu item such as "Check for updates" or include it in a Preferences module. We provide a functional window to get you started.In just four lines of code, your application can ask the Molu Client to check for an update and if an update is available instruct the Molu Client to install the update. When the update is complete, the the application simply resumes normal operation or, if external components are included in the update, the developer would add code to notify the user restart Omnis so the changes can take affect.
I lock all the classes in my library. Can you handle that?
Yes. We have tested and verified this with Omnis Studio 4.0 and 4.0.1. Real developers serving the needs of real clients are updating Omnis libraries with locked classes.
I lock all my libraries, can these be updated?
No. Omnis Studio does not allow this. While there may be ways to circumvent the Omnis security model, we do not endorse doing so.
Molu Developers Tool
My project is not listed in the drop down list.
Your project appears in the Developer tools when the library is open and it is added to the local Molu database. This message means that either your project is not open or it needs to be added to the Molu database. Click on the tab "Manager" and add your project by clicking the "plus" button. Once you have a project added to the Molu database, the project will appear in drop down list at the top of the window.
Error "Unable to locate target task" is raised.
In the wSoftwareUpdate window, in the $construct method, there is a statement that passes parameters to the Molu Client.
$itasks.LiveUpdateClient.$checkforupdates($clib().$name, taskName, UserID, Password, productName)
The second of these parameters is the taskName. This value must be the name of the Task Instance running the window class wSoftwareUpdate. In many cases this may be the same as $ctask().$name.
May I change the name of the Molu Client library file?
Yes. However, do not change the Molu Client file in any other way. Doing so may cause the client to fail and makes it impossible for us to support you. Modification of the Molu Client is not allowed, and will make the legal beagles very unhappy with you.
