iAssist includes a 1 year "updates subscription". What does this mean, and what happens when my subscription ends?

iAssist itself doesn't really manage your server... It is a container that organizes server management utilities. The whole point of iAssist is that Maxum can develop and distribute management utilities with unprecedented ease. (This is because iAssist includes a tool set that makes it easy to create front-ends for existing Unix utiltites, then automatically distributes new functionailty to iAssist users.) As a server administrator, what you are really interested in is the capabilities offered by these server management modules.

So, any module developed and made available by Maxum within one year of your iAssist purchase will be automatically downloaded and dynamically installed in your copy of iAssist. At the end of one year, iAssist will continue to function exactly as it always has, but will no longer download updates. In other words, your copy of iAssist will run forever... But new functionality will only be added for the duration of your subscription. In addition, we will not be able to guarantee that technical support will be able to answer technical questions after your subscription has lapsed.

You will have the option to renew your updates subscription, of course. The fee for renewal has not yet been set, but if we have done our job and the functionality of iAssist has continued to grow to meet your evolving needs, we hope that renewing will be an easy decision.

I am concerned about programs that automatically check in with a remote server. When iAssist checks in for updates, what information about my network and servers does it send back to Maxum?

Nothing. iAssist updates are performed via standard Web transactions, with no cookies or other supplemental information sent one way or the other. To download new modules, iAssist makes a very basic Web request of a standard Web server, which records only standard log information about the "hit". At Maxum, we are comitted to providing you with great software and treating you with respect in order to make you a life-long Maxum customer.

With new updates being released so frequently, I am worried that bugs will come up. Can I stay off of the "bleeding edge", and wait for iAssist updates to become stable before loading them?

There is currently no way to pick and choose what modules you download. However, we do have a mechanism in place for distributing "beta" software updates, and problems that may exist in the software are somewhat limitted in their impact on your server.

First, keep in mind that iAssist is primarily a controller of existing Unix utilities. The overwhelming majority of these programs have undergone years of development and real-world testing. This gives us a very solid foundation on which to start. Also, be aware that an iAssist module isn't even loaded for execution until you click the "Do It!" button to open the controller. So, if there is a particular aspect of iAssist that you are concerned about, you can simply ignore it with the knowledge that if you don't perform that function, it will have no effect on your server(s).

Finally, iAssist does allow you to specify the updates server it uses to retrieve new modules. Maxum maintains an in-house updates server for all developing functionality. This allows us to test new modules exhaustively before making them available to the public. If and when we choose to "pre-release" functionality, we will do so on a "beta" updates server, and announce the availability of the pre-release module on the iAssist-Talk mailing list. That way, people that are interested can evaluate and provide feedback on early versions of new modules before they are widely distributed to all iAssist users.