WAS v6.1 to v8.0 migration
Overview
We perform WebSphere Application Server v6.1 to v8.0 migrations to avoid WAS software lifecycle issues (September 2012).
Applications running in WAS v6/v7 generally do not require modification to run in WAS v8, but they do require modification to be re-compiled.
The migration tools will save the existing WebSphere configurations and user applications in a backup directory and then process the contents of this backup directory to migrate the configurations and applications from previous WAS releases to the latest release. We can also migrate sans the migration tools by building a new WAS v8 cell and then re-setting the configuration manually.
Duration
The time required to perform the migration is dependent on discovery during the assessment and planning phases.
IBM has generated estimates task/time breakdown...
Deployment strategies
- Side by Side
- Create a new v8.0 cell and populate with scripts or manually
- Manually set configuration. No runtime migration tools
- Install applications
- Remove a v6.x cell when it is no longer needed.
- In Place - Copy and replace the cell
- Recreates the exact v6.x/v7.0 configuration in v8.0
- DMgr and nodes are migrated
- In Place - Copy and replace the DMgr
- Recreates the exact v6.x/v7.0 configuration in v8.0
- Add new v8.0 nodes and move incrementally
- Recreates the exact v6.x/v7.0 configuration in v8.0
- In Place - Copy and coexist
- Recreates the exact v6.x/v7.0 configuration in v8.0
- Modify the ports in the new cell and coexist
- Side by Side - Fine Grained
- Create a new cell and incrementally copy existing configuration
- Uses an intermediate profile, runtime migration and PBC tools
Migration tasks
Assessment: Configuration | ||
|---|---|---|
| Feature | Description | Applicable |
| Review deprecated features | See also: Deprecated, stabilized, and removed features | Pending |
| Create credentials to systems | Grant access to WAS, OS, DBs, LDAPs, and any other backend, monitoring, or 3rd-party resources. | Pending |
| Review pre-migration considerations | | Pending |
| Review architecture | | Pending |
| Review deployment process | | Pending |
| Review settings | Leverage wsadmin and other reporting to uncover and plan for custom server settings | Pending |
| Review version and fixpack levels | | Pending |
| Review administrative scripts | | Pending |
| Review any modifications to java.security | Pending | |
| Review for "Use Metadata From Binaries" | Pending | |
| Review scripts for WAS v8 compatability | | Pending |
| Review data sources | | Pending |
| Review core groups | | Pending |
| Review SSL configuration | | Pending |
| Review bus authorization policy | Set unique name entries | Pending |
| Review any Cloudscape instances | | TBD |
| Review multi-broker replication domains | Migrate to data replication domains | Pending |
| Review scheduler service | Migrate any v5 schedulers | Pending |
Assessment: Code | ||
| Scan for known issues | We will leverage the IBM WebSphere Application Server Migration Toolkit | Pending |
| Review JDK v1.4/5 vs JDK v6 API | Pending | |
| Review Web applications | JSP migration, getHeaderNames, JSP page encoding, web.xml file version | Pending |
| Review Web services | Web Services Security, UDDI registry, JAX-WS | Pending |
| Review EJB applications | Enterprise beans. | Pending |
| Review vendor apps | Pending | |
| Review bus authorization policy | Possible new data store table | Pending |
| Review transactions | | Pending |
| Application profiling | Applicable to J2EE 1.3 applications created using WAS v5.x. | Pending |
| Review asynchronous beans | | Pending |
| Review Bean Validation API | Pending | |
| Review embedded messaging | Migrate any WAS v5 embedded messaging to default messaging provider | Pending |
| Review JNDI | | Pending |
| Review OSGi applications | OSGi v7 applications | Pending |
Planning | ||
| Gather stakeholders | | Pending |
| Hardware requirements | | Pending |
| Toplogy design | | Pending |
| Mixed-cells planning | A cell can contain nodes that support WAS v8.0, v7.0, and v6.x. | Pending |
| Plan for coexistence | If required | Pending |
| Determine ports for new instances | If WAS v8.0 will be coexisting with v6.x or v7.x, resolve potential port conflicts. | Pending |
| Shared web servers | Resolve conflicting context roots when attempting to share the same Web server | Pending |
| Decide on deployment strategy | | Pending |
| Identify profiles to be migrated | Establish which instances and profiles will be migrated, and in what order. | Pending |
| Identify client resources | | Pending |
| Unconfigure any ITCAM for WebSphere Data Collectors | Verify supported versions of ITCAM for WAS v8, then upgrade ITCAM to the corresponding release and re-configure ITCAM on the migrated nodes. | Pending |
| Plan for measuring performance | Pending | |
Migration execution | ||
| Task | Description | Status |
| Install WAS v8 on test system | Build a complete WAS ND cell configuration and verify that it works correctly before you attempt to migrate an existing cell or node. This process ensures that the system has all of the necessary prerequisites and supports the new level of WAS. | |
| On v8.0 dmgr, node agent, and appservers, set profile owner | Set before before starting servers. | Pending |
| Save and sync changes in WAS v6 dmgr | Pending | |
| Update existing systems to latest fix level | Pending | |
| backupConfig on v6.1 systems | Run for dmgr and each federated node | Pending |
| Start the WAS v8.0 dmgr | Pending | |
| Migrate stand-alone application servers | | Pending |
| Migrate dmgrs | | Pending |
| Migrate federated nodes | | Pending |
| Troubleshoot | Pending | |
| Rollback and restore | If it fails, rollback environment, run a restoreConfig, and then rerun the migration process | Pending |
| Migrate web server configurations | | Pending |
| Verify LTPA security settings . | Pending | |
| Upgrade ITCAM and reconfigure on migrated nodes | TBD | |