Update or Maintain a Current Environment

Update the current environment by migrating to the latest version of WebSphere Portal.

Differences between a migration and an upgrade

With migration, we install the new version of a product alongside of the earlier version and then copy data from the earlier version to the new version. Your goal is to create a new environment identical to the earlier environment. With upgrading, you replace existing installed out-of-date versions of files with current files. Your data stays in tact.

There are a number of ways in which we can migrate WebSphere Portal to a newer version. Some migration scenarios might offer a higher availability percentage over another. There are some scenarios where the migration might be done in parallel while the source environment remains in production. Other scenarios might require the production system to be disconnected just before going live with the newly migrated system. Depending on your needs on high availability systems, we might choose one approach or another.

Source environment

The source environment is the environment we are currently using.

Target environment

Every migration requires us to set up a target environment. Your target environment is the environment of the new version to move the data to. This new target environment might involve a remote or local migration. The target environment requires a fresh, binary only, portal installation. This type of installation does not create any profiles.

Examples of migrations

Remote

Source and target environments reside on different machines.

Fewer resource conflicts than a local migration.

Provide us with the capability of keeping the portal running while we set up the remote target environment.

Local with coexistence

Maintains the current production environment online while performing the migration to a newer version of WebSphere Portal at the same time. Coexistence is the process of running both the original and the newly migrated portal servers on the same machine at the same time. We can have a remote migration with coexistence.

Involves carefully planning to avoid conflicts. Default settings like port assignments require updating on the migrated WebSphere Portal.

Involves reviewing hardware and software requirements for the new version of WebSphere Portal. Make sure the machine currently running the production WebSphere Portal has enough resources to handle the new installation.

Local without coexistence

Simplest migration scenario. Both source and target portal installations are on the same machine and resource conflicts are minimal. Other configurations, such as ports or virtual portals for example, should not conflict. Both, source and target WebSphere Portal will not be running in parallel at the same time.

There are still some directory structure considerations to keep in mind. We might want to use the same directory structure in your new WebSphere Portal installation to hold logs and backups for example.

Related concepts:

Configuration Wizard