A Succesful WebCenter Upgrade: What You Need to Know

A Successful WebCenter Upgrade:
What You Need to Know
Paul Heupel
Senior WebCenter Consultant
Fishbowl Solutions

Topics To Be Covered
+ Fishbowl overview
+ 11g architecture
+ New features
+ Upgrading WebCenter Content
– Migration process options
– Components
– Tips and tricks
– Project timeline
– Licensing
+ Upgrading WebCenter Imaging
– Migration process and tools
– Timeline
+ WebCenter Portal will not be covered. Come see us in
our booth for info on Portal upgrades!
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www.fishbowlsolutions.com

About Fishbowl Solutions
Experience
+ Over 700 projects since founding in 1999
+ Oracle “Gold” Partner
+ Oracle “Public Sector Pillar Partner”
Expertise
+ Portals and content management
+ Enterprise information management
+ Business process automation
Customer Successes
+ Across verticals
Award Winning
+ Forrester Groundswell Award - Mobile App
+ Oracle Excellence Award
+ Enterprise 2.0 Blazer
+ ECM Architect of the Year
+ Best Places to Work

Leading Innovations
WebCenter Mobile WebCenter Portals & Intranets
SharePoint Integration Google Search Integration

Fishbowl Consulting Services
+ WebCenter Content
- Document Mgmt - Records Mgmt
- Digital Asset Mgmt - Web Content Mgmt
- Image & Process Mgmt - Document Capture
- Forms Recognition - Content Consolidation
+ WebCenter Portal
- Employee Intranets
- Vendor or Partner Extranets
- Customer Portals
+ BPM (business process management)
+ ERP Integrations
+ Upgrades, installations, configuration, performance tuning,
solution design, development, implementation

WebCenter Content 11g
Architecture and Features

10g & 11g Architecture Differences
WebCenter Content 11g
Content Server running in container
(WebLogic Server)
UCM 10g
Closely tied to web server

WebCenter Content: New Web UI
+ Simple, fast
– Immediate response to actions
– Single page app
– Easy content-centric views
+ Compelling
– Provide the best capabilities in
the industry
– Modeled after consumer web
– Zero training
+ Architecture & features
– Detached UI app in front
of content server services
– Libraries, filtering,
scanning, & integrated
viewer

WebCenter Content – Mobile Apps
+ Mobile Access
– Optimized app for
smartphone and tablet
– Support iOS and
Android
– Search, browse, view,
download
– Take important
documents offline
+ Benefits
– Ability for “on the go”
users to access
business documents
– Allows enterprises to
support emerging
BYOD culture

WebCenter Content: Desktop Integration Suite
+ DIS enhanced to
have same look and
feel as new web UI
+ Windows Explorer
integration
enhancements
+ Microsoft Outlook
integration
enhancements

Planning for Success: Tips and
Tricks for Upgrading WebCenter
Content

Step 1 – Have a Plan!
- How much content do you have and what is the
total size?
- How long can production be down during
transition?
- Do you need to maintain audit history?
- Document History and Workflow History
- Is it time for new hardware? Or time to move to
VM?
- Does your database need to be upgraded?
- Standard and custom components
- Consider your storage!
- File store provider

Content Upgrade Options

Upgrade In Place
+ Use of the Oracle Upgrade Assistant allows for ‘in
place’ upgrades
+ The high level process involves:
– Shut down current 10gR3 server
– Install WebLogic Server (or the supported container of
your choice)
– Install the WebCenter Content installation files
– Run the Upgrade Assistant pointing to the existing
instance of Content Server

Advantages / Disadvantages
+ Advantages
– No need to spend time migrating content
– Items stay in workflow
– Audit history stays intact
– Upgrade can be completed in a few hours or less
+ Disadvantages
– Production must be down during upgrade
– Have to keep the same hardware
– More difficult to roll back if something goes wrong.
– Can run into unforeseen issues, even if dev and/or
staging servers are upgraded first.

Upgrade In Place – Decision Criteria
+ Already on 64-bit OS
+ 12+ GB of RAM available
+ Lots of workflow items
+ Need to maintain workflow history
+ Very short upgrade schedule
+ Very large content size
+ Few customizations, or enough time to test
upgraded customizations in dev and stage

Migrating to New Instances
+ Isn’t really an upgrade, but it is very common.
+ Wholly new instances of Content Server are
installed and all configuration, status
information, and content is migrated to the new
instances.
+ Configuration Migration Utility (CMU) is used to
migrate the bulk of the configuration.
+ Archiver is used to migrate custom
table data.
+ The migration of content is typically
performed with the Archiver applet.

+ Advantages
– Can use new hardware
– Can use new database software/hardware
– Can fully test new production before go-live
– Go-live is simply a DNS change
– Easy to roll back to the old system
+ Disadvantages
– Content migration can take a long time
– No easy way to migrate workflow content
– Care has to be taken to migrate audit history

Migrating to New Instance – Decision Criteria
+ Currently on 32-bit OS
+ Current hardware is old
+ Need to upgrade database software
+ Not a lot of workflow content, or plan in place to
handle workflow items
+ Not a lot of content, or plenty of time in schedule
for migration
+ Lots of customizations
+ Need short downtime at go-live
+ Need to be able to roll back quickly

Hybrid Approach - Copy and Upgrade In Place
+ Schedule a time to shut down production
+ Copy 10g file system to new hardware
+ Copy vault and weblayout to new storage
location
+ Copy the database
+ Modify config settings
– Database connection string
– Vault and Weblayout directory locations
– Server ID (IDC_Name)
+ Start the copied 10g server to verify it starts
correctly
+ Run Upgrade Assistant

+ Advantages
– Can use new hardware
– Much faster to copy files over network file shares
instead of using Archiver. Good for large repositories.
– Can fully test new production server before go-live.
– Go-live is just switching a DNS entry.
– Can maintain workflow items.
– Easy to roll back in case of issues.
+ Disadvantages
– Content must be reconciled from the “snapshot” date
to the go-live date, including workflow items.
– Not a fully documented method, requires config
changes.

Hybrid Approach – Decision Criteria
+ Currently on 32-bit OS or on old hardware
+ A lot of content in the system
+ A lot of workflow content in the system
+ A lot of customizations
+ Want to keep same database software
+ Need short downtime at go-live
+ Need to be able to roll back quickly

What About Standard
Components?
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Standard Component Considerations
+ WebCenter Content 11g comes with the standard components
already pre-packaged
+ After upgrade with UA, all old components will be disabled
+ Checkboxes in Admin Server page to enable standard
components
+ Standard components are upgraded with patches to the
system, not installed manually

Folders
+ New folders component called Framework Folders
+ New functionality in Framework Folders
– Query folders
– Enterprise Library folders
– No more 1000 sub-folders or 1000 pieces of content limits
+ Folders_g still exists, but the future is Framework
Folders
+ Upgrade tool to move from folders_g to Framework
Folders
+ New DIS client
+ WebDAV URL changed
– Old URL –
http://showme.fishbowlsolutions.com/cs/idcplg/webdav/
– New URL -
http://showme.fishbowlsolutions.com/_dav/cs/idcplg/webdav/

Site Studio
+ Updated version of
Designer and Contributor
+ 11g Site Studio almost the
same as 10gR4
+ Sites don’t require much,
if any, changes to upgrade
+ 10gR3 sites will continue
to function, but can’t use latest
features
+ Site Studio is not Oracle’s strategic WCM offering
going forward; this has been taken up by
WebCenter Sites

What About Custom
Components?

Custom Component Considerations
+ All custom components should be upgraded and
tested in development before upgrading production
+ Back-end customizations like custom services will
most likely work after upgrade
+ Front-end customizations may need work
– Menuing
– Results tables
– CSS changes
– Skins / Layouts
– JavaScript
+ If using Upgrade Assistant, make sure custom
workflow components are enabled before starting 11g
server!
+ IdcToken
– Standard include

Additional Considerations

Web Server
+ WebCenter Content is available on port 16200;
install a web server so users aren’t required to
enter a port
– IIS
– OHS
– Apache
+ Web server proxies requests to application
server; Weblogic Proxy Plugin available from
Oracle
+ Make sure to configure SSL in web server
+ SSL can also be configured between application
server and web server

Refinery
+ Deployed as a managed server in WebLogic
+ Still recommended to install on a separate
server
+ Oracle does not recommend upgrading in place.
Install fresh for 11g
+ New direct PDF export engine
+ Still recommend using Office to convert Office
documents

File Store Provider
+ File Store Provider defines the location of files
and how to disperse the files
+ Existed in 10g; functionality had to be enabled
+ 11g has dispersion enabled automatically
– Files are dispersed to limit files in folders
– Web URL changes for documents
– Important to note that web links to documents may
break, particularly for Site Studio
– Can be changed back to not use dispersion
– Typically recommend setting up storage rule for any
docs that should use the old paths

Upgrade Timeline

Project Timeline
+ Depends heavily on the level of customization
and amount of content
+ Typical upgrades range from 6 weeks to 3
months
+ If migrating to a new server, test the transfer rate
early!
+ Allow enough time for user acceptance testing
and sign-off from the business
+ Plan time for resolution of some (hopefully) small
issues post go-live

Planning for Success: Tips and
Tricks for Upgrading WebCenter
Imaging
Paul Heupel
Senior Software Consultant
– Team Lead
Fishbowl Solutions

Changes in Imaging 11g
+ Java application deployed as a managed server
in WebLogic
+ All content stored in WebCenter Content
+ Web application - no more client installation.
+ Process workflow separated out to use BPM
+ Scalability and
redundancy now
handled with
WebLogic clustering

Items to Note About 11g
+ Two viewers built into the product
– Basic
– Advanced
+ Administrator can set default viewer, user can change it
in Preferences.
+ Advanced viewer required to create/modify annotations.
+ Advanced viewer requires Java on client machine.
+ Users will get Java prompts if Java is out of date.
+ Most preference defaults can be set in Enterprise
Manager.
+ E-mailing in the system now sends a link instead of an
attachment.

Migration Considerations
+ No in-place upgrade - must install 11g from scratch
+ No tool to migrate applications, security, workflow, or
searches from 10g to 11g; all settings must be
configured manually in 11g
+ Can migrate settings between 11g servers (Dev to
Stage to Prod)
+ Oracle supported migration tool for migrating
content
+ Migration tool only
works with latest
patchset of IBPM 10gR3
10.1.3.6 (7.7 PR4)

Migration Overview
+ Patch IBPM 10gR3 system to 10.1.3.6.
+ Install WebLogic and IPM 11g on new hardware.
+ Install BPM / SOA 11g on new hardware if using
workflow.
+ Configure applications, security, and searches in
IPM 11g.
+ Configure workflows in BPM.
+ Create Input definitions in IPM 11g.
+ Use Oracle Migration Tool to export content to 11g
input location.
+ Cut over to new production system.

Notes on Oracle Migration Tool
+ Tool can be installed and run from a server
separate from IBPM.
+ Migration tool can be optimized.
– Run multiple migration tool instances at once.
– Adjust the number of migration threads per instance.
+ Tool stores migration info in the database so it
can be stopped and started throughout the
process.
+ Failures can be reset and tried again.
+ Tool will start with latest documents first and
work its way backwards. It’s possible to go-live
before migration has finished.

Migration Tool Limitations
+ Does not export 10g Stamps or Bitmap annotations.
+ All rich text formatting for Sticky Notes is removed
during export.
+ Any annotation that falls outside the bounds of the
original image is placed at the top left to top right
corner of the image
+ Only exports documents and their annotations.
+ Will recombine multi-page tiff files. Will export other
compound document types as separate files.
+ If configured to burn in annotations, tool will export
all files as tiffs.
+ Tool can affect the performance of IBPM.

Time to Complete the Migration
+ Migration speed can vary
widely based on CPU,
RAM, network latency,
IBPM system load, etc.
+ Expect to realize about
150 - 200 documents
migrated per minute with
a single migration node.
+ Performance of the tool can be improved by
running during offline hours.

New Licensing

Oracle License Migration
+ Stellent licensing model was based on instance
and based on module.
+ Oracle licensing model is based on CPU.
+ May need to go through license migration during
upgrade.
+ Licensing varies if using VMWare vs. Oracle VM
vs physical hardware.

Summary & Questions

Additional Resources
+ Booth: #2036 Moscone South
+ Web: www.fishbowlsolutions.com
+ Email: info@fishbowlsolutions.com
+ Twitter: @fishbowlE20
+ Facebook: facebook.com/fishbowlsolutions
Learn more about WebCenter Content
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Search, Portal Solution Accelerator, and
more.
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Fishbowl Presentations at OpenWorld
Wednesday, October 1st
• Automate Financial Processes for PeopleSoft and Oracle E-Business Suite
• 12:45 PM to 1:30 PM
• Moscone West, 3018
• Oracle WebCenter for Education and Research
• 2:00 to 2:45 PM
• Marriott Marquis, Golden Gate C3

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A Succesful WebCenter Upgrade: What You Need to Know

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