Migration from Versions 4.5/5.1 to 8.1

If you're migrating from a version earlier than 6.0, you have a little more work to do. Luckily, WebLogic Server 8.1 includes a number of migration tools to make your upgrade as quick and painless as possible.

Upgrading a WebLogic 4.5/5.1 Installation to 8.1

Assuming that you've backed up all of your WebLogic 4.5/5.1 domains and installed WebLogic Server 8.1, the next thing you need to do is to upgrade your WebLogic Server license files.

Upgrading Your BEA License Files

To upgrade your license file, which is presumably a nonexpiring license file, first check to see which kind of license file format you have. It will be either a WebLogicLicense.class license file or a WebLogicLicense.xml file.

If it's WebLogicLicense.class file, you'll first need to convert it to the XML file WebLogicLicense.xml. WebLogic Server 8.1 provides a utility to do this: the licenseConverter.

To convert the class file into XML, open a command window and run the setEnv.cmd command to set your environment. Then run the following:

java utils.licenseConverter -w c:\weblogic

where c:\weblogic is the location you want the WebLogicLicense.xml file to be written to.

Now that you have a WebLogicLicense.xml file, you can use it to get the license.bea-type file used in WebLogic version 8.1. There are a few steps involved in doing this, and you'll need a little help from the folks at BEA. First, log in to the BEA Customer Service site at http://elicense.bea.com/elicense_webapp/index.jsp.At the left of the page, click on the Upgrade link.

You can submit up to 10 WebLogicLicense.xml files for conversion, as long as they are on your hard drive. BEA will then email you back a converted license_wls81.bea file for each.

Now that you have the license_wls81.bea file, you still have to convert it to a license.bea file. To do this, you use the UpdateLicense utility to merge it with the evaluation license that was installed when you installed WebLogic Server 8.1. This is demonstrated in the following steps:

Open a command window and run the setEnv.cmd command to set your environment.
Place the license file you received from BEA into the BEA home directory (make sure that it's saved as something other than license.bea).
Navigate to the BEA home directory (this is where the target file will be output to). Then run the following:
```
c:\bea\weblogic81>java UpdateLicense license_wls81.bea
```
where license_wls81.bea is the name of the file you received from BEA and have in the WebLogic root directory.

A new license.bea file is created to replace the old one.
The last step is a precaution. Save the resulting license.bea file to a floppy disk or back it up somewhere on the network in case you need it for any future reinstallations.

You should now be able to start your WebLogic Server 8.1 installation with the new license.bea file.

Converting the weblogic.properties File

After you've upgraded your license files, you need to convert your old WebLogic Server's weblogic.properties file into a new domain. The weblogic.properties file was used to hold configuration information for both the server installation as well as the applications. Each installation had two weblogic.properties files: a global file to set universal attributes and a server-specific one to override settings on the global file. Beginning in WebLogic Server version 6.0, domain configuration and application configuration were separated. Domain configurations went into a domain configuration file, config.xml, and the application's configurations moved to the application deployment descriptors, such as web.xml and ejb-jar.xml.

WebLogic Server 8.1 provides utilities to make the conversion process as easy as possible. The following steps walk you through a typical conversion:

First, start WebLogic Server 8.1.
Next, log in to the Administration Console. In the right panel, click on the Convert weblogic.properties link under the Information and Resources - Helpful Tools heading. The GUI conversion utility is displayed in the right panel.
Now locate the root directory of your old WebLogic Server installation. This is the directory where the weblogic.properties file that you want to convert is located. Navigation is a bit tricky on this page. Click a directory link to move up or down the directories. My legacy WebLogic installation is in the c:\weblogic directory, so I want to have c:\weblogic displayed and I'm going to click on the little pentagonal icon next to it to select it.

CAUTION

Make sure that you click on the icon on the left, not the directory link!
The next page displayed asks you to identify any server-specific or cluster-specific directories for the conversion (this corresponds to the server-specific weblogic.properties file). For this example, I'll choose to convert the myserver server's specific weblogic.properties file.
To complete the form, you're also asked to assign an administrative server name and an output directory (where the new config.xml file will be written to). I'll name my administration server oldserver and use the output directory at c:\bea\user_projects\OldServer. Remember, WebLogic Server 8.1 best practices suggest that this new domain directory should be outside the WebLogic Server installation. The subdirectory name \OldServer will be the name of the new domain. Enter the WebLogic home directory of your old installation if it was other then the default (c:\weblogic). If you're using the default, you can leave this blank. Finally, you must enter a name for the new domain. I'll call mine OldDomain.
Click Convert to begin the conversion process.

If everything goes as planned, you should get a successful conversion confirmation page.

NOTE

You can confirm the new domain conversion by starting WebLogic Server for the newly created domain. In my example, I would run the startOldDomain.cmd command file, created by the conversion utility, which was created in the c:\bea\user_projects\OldDomain\directory.

The username and password required to start the migrated domain correspond to the old installation.

Upgrading Version 4.5/5.1 WebLogic Applications

When migrating existing applications into the WebLogic 8.1 environment, they must be restructured to conform to the J2EE-specified directory structure. Fortunately, the weblogic.properties conversion utility handles this for you. The utility separates installation configuration data from application configuration data, and automatically re-creates your previous application structures into the J2EE-compliant 6.x/7.0/8.1 format.

For instance, Web applications now have a \WEB-INF subdirectory that holds configuration files for the Web application, and EJB applications now have a \META-INF subdirectory that hold configuration files for the EJB application. It's recommended that you install this new domain structure outside of the WebLogic 8.1 directory, as suggested during the conversion process.

The conversion utility also creates new startup scripts. Because the structure changed so much between versions 5.1 and 6.0, there isn't much you can use from the original scripts. You should check the classpath variables to ensure that all the libraries are correct. The license file should be removed from the classpath.

You also should double-check the environment variables set using the -D tags. The conversion utility is good, but it isn't a magic bullet.

[ Team LiB ]