Upgrading Weblogic application environment from 8.1 to 9.1

[Aravapalli]

This will cover the process for upgrading the application environment from Weblogic 8.1 to 9.1

I'm dividing the the whole process in to 5 different steps as fellows

• Plan the Upgrade
• Prepare to Upgrade
• Upgrade Your Application Environment
• Complete Post-Upgrade Procedure
• What to Do If the Upgrade Process Fails

Plan the Upgrade

Planning how you will upgrade an application environment is an important step in the process. To ensure that your plan addresses all of the aspects of upgrading that are necessary for your environment, complete the following steps:

Step 1: Inventory the Application Environment
Step 2: Verify Supported Configuration Information
Step 3: Review the Compatibility Information
Step 4: Create an Upgrade Plan

Step 1: Inventory the Application Environment
Generate a inventory for the Application Environment as a check list

Check list for Application Env for Upgrading:
1. Identify the Administration server and Managed on which it resides.
2. Identify the Managed servers and machines on which they resides.
3. Identify Custom security providers used in the domain.
4. Identify Custom Node Manager used in the domain.
5. Identify the location of the applications (including all external applications)
6. Identify External resources like databased used, firewalls, and load balancers.
7. Identify tools, scripts, templates, and source code used for automating the tasks required to create the application env.

Step 2: Verify Supported Configuration Information
Verify support for all the hardware and software components in the application environment.

this are the list of wee have to check
1. OS and hardware support: we can get this from bea where listed the list of supported configuration
2. Database support: We have to identify the what type of database we are using for the application and we have to check what are the compatible drivers for that, this data we can get from Supported Database Configurations
3.Web servers, browsers, and firewalls: Supported Web Servers, Browsers, and Firewalls this link will provide the required details for this addons.

Step 3: Review the Compatibility Information
Compatibility with Previous Releases this link will provide the required information for the Compatibility Information.

Step 4: Create an Upgrade Plan
Using the information gathered in the preceding steps, create a plan for upgrading your application environment. Identify the scope and timing of the upgrade process, based on your business needs.

Note: It is not recommend to upgrading an application environment that is currently deployed in production. Instead, you should upgrade your application environment while it is under development or test and execute standard procedures for quality assurance and performance tuning before promoting the upgraded environment to production.

And the other steps I'll explain in forth coming postes

[Aravapalli]

In last post we discussed about planning for the upgrading from 8.1 to 9.1 in continuation here we see about preparation of upgrading.

Prepare to Upgrade

Steps to Upgrading:
Step 1: Shut Down Servers in the Application Environment
Step 2: Back Up the Application Environment
Step 3: Install WebLogic Server 9.1
Step 4: Prepare the Remote Managed Server Domain Directories
Step 5: Set Up the Environment

Step 1: Shut Down Servers in the Application Environment
This one is simple, we must Shut down all the Admin and managed servers in the application environment.

Step 2: Back Up the Application Environment
It is recommended to take bakeup of all the components defined in the fellowing list:

1. Domain directory: Back up the Administration Server and any remote Managed Server domain directories that are defined in the application environment.
   
2. Applications and application-persisted data: Back up any applications and data that reside outside the domain directory.
   
3. Custom security providers: Back up any custom security providers that you are using in your application environment.
   
4. Node Manager directory and scripts: Back up any Node Manager directories and scripts that you are using to manage your servers in a clustered environment.
   
5. Log files: If it is important for you to maintain a record of all messages that are logged, back up the log files. As log files can be large, you may want to delete them to conserve disk space, if it is not important to maintain them.

Step 3: Install WebLogic Server 9.1
Before upgrading your application environment, you must install WebLogic Server 9.1 on each machine in the domain.

Step 4: Prepare the Remote Managed Server Domain Directories
Some of our configurations may include Managed Servers running on one or more machines that are remote from the Administration Server for the domain. If we have this type of configuration, we must upgrade the domain directories on each of the machines that host the remote Managed Servers.

To prepare the remote domain directories, we must copy the following files from the root directory of the pre-upgraded domain directory on the host machine for the Administration Server to the root directory of the host domain(s) of the remote Managed Servers:

• config.xml (configuration file)
• SerializedSystemIni.dat

Step 5: Set Up the Environment
To set up the environment for an upgrade:

1. Open an MS-DOS command prompt window (on Windows) or a command shell (on UNIX).
2. Add the WebLogic Server classes to the CLASSPATH environment variable and WL_HOME\server\bin to the PATH environment variable, where WL_HOME refers to the top-level installation directory for WebLogic Server.
   We can use the WL_HOME\server\bin\setWLSenv script to set both variables.
   
3. If we use JMS JDBC stores:
   • Make sure the JDBC driver classes are added to the CLASSPATH environment variable.
   • Start the corresponding database.

[dostcasper]

Where is the rest of the article?