High-level guideline for a switchover migration

A switchover migration is the migration from a WebSphere Commerce production environment to an unused WebSphere Commerce environment on the same or different hardware. This process allows for an existing production system to be left in place until the moment that the new environment is ready. Site traffic can then be redirected to the new environment. This sample switchover migration plan can be used as an example to plan and size your own project.

Plan and prepare for migration

The following sequence of steps outlines both a WebSphere Commerce Developer and WebSphere Commerce migration. For a complete migration, you are required to migrate WebSphere Commerce Developer, and then migrate WebSphere Commerce. Your migrated development environment is needed to deploy your custom assets when you migrate your test or production environment.

In previous WebSphere Commerce migrations, there was the concept of an application tier migration. WebSphere Commerce Version 7.0 included utilities to migrate your older applications to version 7.0. In version 8.0, you simply deploy your customizations from a migrated development environment to a version 8.0 runtime environment.
Note: Use the following high-level steps as a guideline only. Your steps might differ significantly from the example presented.
  1. Schedule training, if necessary, on any new technologies that you want to use on the new WebSphere Commerce version. For example, your development team might want to learn to customize Management Center with DHTML.
  2. Familiarize yourself with the WebSphere Commerce migration process.
  3. Create a regression test plan for the site.
  4. Review and update any custom scripts that you might use in your WebSphere Commerce site, including build, deployment, and data load scripts.
  5. Back up your existing assets across all development, testing, staging, and production environments.

Migrate your development environment

  1. Upgrade your software levels to the levels required by WebSphere Commerce Version 8.0, for example, your operating system level.
  2. Prepare your version 7.0 development environment.
    1. If you plan on migrating Management Center customizations, upgrade to WebSphere Commerce Version 7.0 Feature Pack 2 or higher.
    2. Back up database.
  3. Prepare your version 8.0 development environment.
    1. Copy version 7.0 development database back up to version 8.0 development environment.
    2. Restore version 7.0 development database copy on version 8.0 development environment to replace the default database that is created during instance creation.
    3. Prepare database for migration.
  4. Migrate your development database.
  5. Migrate your custom assets.
    1. Migrate Management Center
    2. Migrate search
  6. Update WebSphere Commerce Developer server configurations.
  7. Test your migrated development environment.

Create you build server

  1. Configure WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment (WCBD) tool.
  2. Apply any WCBD property customizations that you might have had in your version 7.0 build server.
  3. Create a WCBD package that contains your migrated custom assets.

Migrate your runtime / production environment

This sequence is designed so that you prepare and test your future version 8.0 production environment in parallel to serving live traffic, which is how you achieve a minimal downtime migration. After that environment is fully tested with your migrated store and customizations, you migrate your live database, and then redirect traffic from your version 7.0 environment to your version 8.0 environment.
  1. Back up your production environment WebSphere Commerce system.
  2. Upgrade your version 7.0 database to the supported version 8.0.
  3. Prepare the version 7.0 environment.
    1. Back up database
  4. Prepare the version 8.0 environment.
    1. Install version 8.0 software stack.
    2. Install the latest Mod Pack and Fix Pack.
    3. Create a version 8.0 instance that has the same instance properties as your existing version 7.0 instance. This instance has the latest Fix Pack and Feature Pack applied. A default database is also created.
    4. Enable search.
    5. Copy the version 7.0 database back up to version 8.0 environment.
    6. Restore the version 7.0 database copy on version 8.0 to replace the default database that is created during instance creation.
    7. Clean up database for migration.
  5. Migrate restored database.
  6. Complete post database migration steps.
  7. Deploy your customizations from your migrated version 8.0 development environment to your version 8.0 environment.
  8. Migrate WebSphere Commerce search.
  9. Migrate site security.
  10. Migrate any remaining WebSphere Commerce functions, and reconfigure any third-party integrations.
  11. Cluster your environment.
  12. Perform post-migration tasks.
  13. Create clones of environment for testing.
  14. Perform a full regression test on environment.
  15. Migrate live database.
    1. Back up live version 7.0 database.
    2. Point your version 8.0 environment to the live version 7.0 database.
    3. Migrate the live database while still serving traffic.
    4. Switch traffic from version 7.0 to version 8.0.
    5. Update SITE table on live database.
  16. Update your migrated database to latest Mod Pack and Fix Pack.