We would like to thank everyone for being patient. The first “alpha” version of Syncplify Server! v6 will be ready soon, we’re now applying the final touches to our Admin UI, and in the coming weeks we will reach out to the alpha-testers who signed up, and deliver the first preview of V6 to them.
Thanks to all of you for your continued support! 🙂
From version 1.0 all the way up to version 5.1 (current at the time this article is being written) we’ve always implemented a step-by-step upgrade plan. This has some advantages in terms of code simplicity, but can make the user experience less pleasant.
Imagine, in fact, that you want to upgrade from V3 to V5: you’d have to upgrade from V3 to V4 first, and then from V4 to V5. It’s two upgrades, different from each other, each one with its own requirements and peculiarities.
Starting from V6, instead, you’ll be able to upgrade directly from all previous V4+ versions.
So… if you’re still running V4, you will be able to perform a direct upgrade from V4 to V6. And if you’re running V5, you will be able to upgrade directly to V6.
These direct upgrades cannot include versions 1.x through 3.x for strictly technical reasons. But all future versions (V7, V8, etc…) will feature the same direct upgrade process, as long as you’re running an original version now lower than V4.
While Syncplify.me Server! v1 through v5 has always been a Windows-only software, thus coming with a single Windows-only installer, our new Syncplify Server! v6 will come with a variety of installation options:
This one requires no explanation. It’s the common way to install most software on Windows: a graphical “wizard” that guides the user through the process of deploying a software onto their operating system.
The only addition to the usual GUI experience is that this installer can be run with the /SILENT or /VERYSILENT command line parameters, to reduce or completely eliminate the graphical aspect of it (sometimes useful for automated deployments).
A 100% new addition to Syncplify Server!’s installation systems will be the CLI Installer. This one is to be run at command-line, and doesn’t have any graphical user interface, it provides all of its feedback in the Terminal (bash, fish, zsh, CMD, PowerShell, …).
This CLI Installer is actually more sophisticated than the GUI one. In fact, not only it supports both Windows and Linux, but it is absolutely ideal for unattended/automated deployment, given that:
Package managers used to be a Linux-only prerogative until not long ago. Now Windows has a variety of package managers as well: Chocolatey is probably the most famous one, but recently Microsoft has introduced WinGet (Windows’ official package manager).
Given the course that software installations are taking, across all operating systems, it goes by itself that we had to add support for these package managers. So, yes, once Syncplify Server! v6 is released, you will find it in Chocolatey’s and WinGet’s repositories, as well as others to be announced as they are added to our list of officially supported ones.
Recently we had the chance to help one of our customer achieve a data synchronization task, which spawned an unusual cooperation that gave birth to a tale worth telling. So, here we go.
Our customer was using Syncplify.me AFT!, our scriptable secure file transfer client, to automate some unattended data synchronization tasks.
One of these tasks was failing with an unusual error message. At first we didn’t think much of it, because it seemed to be just a refusal from the server to set the file last modification date after the upload, which is a very common scenario, and AFT! handles it gracefully.
Upon further investigation, though, turns our that the error message had deeper roots.
That’s when the conversation was broadened, to include the vendor of the server software as well: the server in question was SFTP To Go, by Crazy Ant Labs.
Crazy Ant Labs’ support staff was courteous, and very quick at pointing out that since SFTP To Go’s back-end storage is based on AWS S3, it also inherits some of S3’s well-known “quirks”. In this particular case it was an unsupported set of file-open flags.
Thanks to this rational assessment, our team was able to quickly release a new minor version of AFT! that specifically addresses this limitation, while also retaining the previous broader set of file-open flags for those cases that support them, automatically determining which file-open flag set should be used on a case by case manner.
We all here at Syncplify were impressed with the courtesy and professionalism of the Crazy And Labs’ staff, who have been most helpful both in identifying the problem in the first place, and in providing precise feedback to help us resolve it.
Good cooperation between software vendors in the same space led to a customer success story for all the parties involved.
