I have been trying to migrate an existing mature application from Websphere (Server v5.1) with DB2 support to run in a glassfish environment using SQL Server as the DB. I am tasked to perform the migration; but I have no access to the Websphere environment and do not have history with this application. I have no idea what's going on in the Websphere app server nor what the configuration is. I am simply handed a CD containing a set of folders with some rudimentary documentation and a set of folders which relate to certain modules of this application. Within the module folders are a set of EAR and JAR files. (<a href="
http://consolation-lounge.blogspot.com/2008/08/tackling-government-contract.html">A blog of my adventure is here</a>)<br /><br />
I have been able to ascertain that there is a single web application EAR, but that this EAR is dependent upon 3 other EJB modules - each having their own EAR and JARs. There are a number of JAR files repeated within each of the EJB folders - and I assume this is for loading or deploying just that module alone. As an initial task, I copied all the files into a test area, extracted all the Websphere EAR files (so I can see what's there) into it's own area, and then ran the <b>Migrate2glassfish</b> utility on each EAR. The primary application EAR migrated successfully. None of the EJB EARs were successful - all failed with "Found but could not migrate unsupported, proprietary class(es)". There are a consistent set of classes that are "unsupported":<br />
- com.ibm.ejs.container.*<br />
- com.ibm.websphere.csi.CSIServant<br />
- com.ibm.websphere.csi.TransactionalObject<br /><br />
I have not successfully completed any experiment in deploying any of the EJB modules alone. And, in an attempt to troubleshoot, I found I cannot even load any of the migrated EARs into Eclipse to look - getting an error message that there is no module in the application.xml of each I try to import. Apparently, it seems that Eclipse recreates the application.xml during the import process and the re-created file does not have the module tag definition - yet, if I extract the migrated EAR (even ones that failed to migrate some files) I see the correct module tag and JAR definition. Now, to be fair, I am having the same behavior trying to import a non-migrated EAR into Eclipse - but I kind of expect that, since I don't have access to nor have Eclipse configured to "see" a Websphere app server. Though this makes me wonder if I'm overlooking something fundamental - along the lines of not seeing the forest due to all the trees in the way.<br /><br />
Gosh, I am beginning to think this migration tool is rather useless and that I'm going to have to do the migration the hard way, one tedious JAR at a time, trying to determine what are the constraints along the way. I was hoping this was a RAD tool; that it would save me some time and effort, that it would "just work" and either ask me for property criteria or other configuration stuff like connection pools and such during the migration process or provide a useful report of what is needed to deploy the resulting EAR. I am not an expert in migration tactics and I sure would like some help in determining what to look for and where to go to fix the problems I'm having. Anyone with ideas? I need answers to things like:<br> - What is next after running the migration tool and deploy fails? <br> - How do I troubleshoot a failed migration? <br> - Why can't I import the EAR into Eclipse (am I missing something)?<br /><br />
Da Lizard
[Message sent by forum member 'loungelizard' (loungelizard)]
http://forums.java.net/jive/thread.jspa?messageID=296956