Platform installation

The Thinkwise Platform can be easily installed using the Thinkwise Deployment Center.

After downloading the Deployment Center from the Thinkwise Community Portal, run the twdeployerGUI.exe to start the installation. The Deployment Center can be used to install both an application environment, consisting of an Intelligent Application Manager, Indicium Application Tier and user interfaces, and the Software Factory development environment.

A command-line installer is available for automated deployments.

The Deployment Center can also be used to install applications created with the Thinkwise Platform. More information can be found here.

Install the Intelligent Application Manager

Start by installing the Intelligent Application Manager for the Thinkwise application or the Software Factory development environment. It is also possible to upgrade or apply hotfixes to an existing IAM installation.

To install the Indicium Application Tier, it is required that the IIS Administration API is available on the target server.

Important: Starting with Thinkwise Platform version 2020.2, an Indicium Universal runtime needs to be installed and running for every Intelligent Application Manager.

The IAM installation will guide you through all required steps to install the IAM database, Indicium Application Tier and user interfaces.

After the installation, a shortcut is available on your desktop to start the IAM application.

License

After the initial registration, licenses will be automatically renewed. In this chapter, both the initial registration (manually and automatically) and license renewal will be explained.

If problems still occur after following the steps described below, see: Troubleshooting licenses.

In this chapter, the expression environment denotes an Intelligent Application Manager plus the applications in this IAM and all runtime components attached, such as Indicium Universal, GUI's, etc.

Prerequisites for automatic license renewal

Automatic license renewal is only possible with:

• Indicium Universal (as of version 2020.2, check the Lifecycle policy for the most recent support information).
• Access to and credentials for the Thinkwise Community Portal (TCP).
• The environment registration and license renewal mechanisms require Indicium Universal to have an active internet connection. There are some scenarios where this is not possible. For instance, in environments that are isolated from the internet or remote environments where the window of opportunity for an active internet connection does not match the license renewal schedule. Please contact your Thinkwise representative if this is the case. A manually installed offline license or a license with a custom renewal schedule can be arranged.

First-time registration

By default, all environments are unregistered. Also the Deployment Center comes without a Thinkwise Platform license. When an unregistered environment is started, the applications in this environment will not be available. Only the IAM application will be available to IAM administrators.

This applies to:

• Freshly installed environments without any applications.
• Development environments containing a Software Factory.
• Upgraded 2020.1-or-earlier environments with regular applications.

To be able to use an environment, it must be registered manually once. See: Manual environment registration. After this first time, it will be recognized and registered automatically.

The following message is shown when an environment has not been registered yet:

"Your Thinkwise license has expired. Please contact your system administrator or Thinkwise Innovation B.V."

Manual environment registration

An environment has to be registered manually when the license renewal mechanism fails to identify the environment. The main reason is often that it concerns an upgraded 2020.2+ environment or a freshly installed development environment.

When an unregistered environment is started, a message will be shown that manual environment registration is recommended:

"This environment is not registered. Applications are not available because of this. Please register the environment using the menu item 'Register environment' under 'Settings'."

The registration can be started from the IAM menu:

menu Settings > Register environment

1. In the Thinkwise Community Portal, login using your regular Thinkwise community credentials.
2. Follow the steps to register the environment for your company.

It can take up to 5 minutes before the registration of the environment is fully processed.

Automatic environment registration

After the first manual registration, environment registration will be done automatically.

• Once an environment is registered manually, the license mechanism will automatically match and register any new environment that contains a model that is also present in the registered environment. For instance, when you register a development environment, all Intelligent Application Managers containing applications built in the development environment will automatically be identified and registered to the same company.

• Synchronizing a project to an empty IAM is another way to register the IAM. Once an application has been created for the project, the IAM will be automatically identified and registered.

It can take up to 5 minutes after creating the application for the environment to be registered automatically.

Because of this mechanism, any modification to the IAM environment that causes it to be considered as a new environment will automatically re-register the environment as long as a recognized application is present. For instance, copying or renaming the IAM database will automatically yield a new license based on the applications in this IAM.

Automatic license renewal

Renewal of the license will be done automatically, following a predefined schedule.

The license is bound to the environment and is non-transferrable. Because of this, changes in the environment can trigger an unscheduled license renewal. This can be a database server update, a rename of the IAM database name or migrating IAM to a different server. Copying an IAM environment will also require a license refresh as the present license will not be valid for the copied environment. The automatic environment registration will kick in as the applications present in IAM can be used to automatically register the new or migrated environment.

If the renewal process is interrupted repeatedly (due to Indicium Universal not running or lack of internet connection), a message is shown to administrators on start-up one month before the license expires. When the license has expired, end-users will also be informed of the expired license.

Consult the Indicium Universal log for information about the license status and license renewals.

To only check the current license on startup and skip further checks in the background, see Disable scheduled license update checks.

Software Factory

When installing a development environment, continue with the Software Factory installation.

As the model of the Software Factory development environment needs to be added to an IAM, the first step is to connect with a database server and select the IAM database to use. In most cases, this is the IAM database created in the previous step.

After installing the Software Factory, the previously created IAM shortcut can be used to start the development environment.

Other components

The Deployment Center can also be used to manually install or update the Windows, Web and Mobile user interfaces or the Indicium Application Tier.

Note that to be able to install the Web GUI or Indicium using the Deployment Center, the IIS Administration API needs to be installed on the web server.

Troubleshooting Platform installation

The following messages/problems can occur during the platform installation:

This compatibility level is for SQL Server [version] or higher

This problem can have one of two possible causes:

• The SQL Server is outdated and needs an update. In that case: update the SQL Server to a supported version.

or:

• The SQL Server has the required version, but in the database it's configured at a lower version. In that case:

1. Open SQL Server Management Studio and go to the IAM database properties.
2. Open the Options menu.
3. Check if the Compatibility level is set at the right level.

IAM properties in SQL Server Management Studio (Compatibilty level)

Troubleshooting licenses

Consult the Indicium logs to find out more about the status of the current license and the license renewal attempts. The licensing mechanism prints out detailed information.

Example of a log file

License expired or not present

If a license is about to expire or is missing, a message will be shown to administrators. The ribbon will turn red. Messages will also be shown to the end-users when the license has actually expired or when no license is present. Normally, this should not occur for environments that have been registered, so be sure to check if Indicium Universal is running for the environment.

There are several important settings in the IIS to ensure Indicium Universal is performing the license trades correctly:

1. Open IIS.
2. Ensure that the application pool for Indicium Universal does not shut down on inactivity. Set the Idle time-out to 0 minutes instead of the default 20 minutes.
3. Check in the application pool's Advanced Settings that the StartMode is set to AlwaysRunning (instead of OnDemand).
4. Check in the Indicium site's Advanced settings that Preload mode is enabled. Note that the Preload feature of IIS will not work correctly if the website only accepts traffic via https, as the preload request is fired on http. A resolution for this problem can be found here.
5. Check the Indicium.txt logfile if the license has been retrieved.

Indicium won't connect to retrieve a license

Make sure the connection to “licensing.thinkwisesoftware.com” (port 443) is allowed.

This is usually only needed when a firewall is blocking outgoing connections, or when using a whitelist for this purpose.

This environment is not registered etc.

If the environment has been registered according to the steps in chapter First-time registration but this message still appears:

"This environment is not registered. Applications are not available because of this. Please register the environment using the menu item 'Register environment' under 'Settings'."

Check in IAM if the license key has been entered:

Menu Settings > Global settings

1. Check in field License if a key has been entered.

2. If so, run this statement on the relevant database:

   update global_settings
   set license = null
   

3. Restart the IIS service.

License key in IAM