Upgrading HCL Commerce Version 9 to HCL Commerce Version 9.1+

The following section presents the high-level steps that you must complete to upgrade from an earlier version of HCL Commerce Version 9 to a newer version of HCL Commerce Version 9.1.

Upgrading from HCL Commerce Version 9 to a later minor release requires that three steps are taken:
  1. Upgrade your HCL Commerce development environments.
  2. Upgrade your HCL Commerce databases.
  3. Upgrade your HCL Commerce production environments.
Important: If you are upgrading from an HCL Commerce Version 9.0 to a HCL Commerce Version 9.1 release, you must back up and restore any signer certificates on your HCL Commerce development environments that you want to retain within the WebSphere Application Server trusted store.

Procedure

  1. Back up your HCL Commerce Version 9 environments. Specifically note and obtain copies of any customizations that are made.
  2. Upgrade your HCL Commerce development environments.

    HCL Commerce development environments can be upgraded by obtaining and loading the respective .pak installation file for the newer release via IBM Installation Manager. For more details on the upgrade procedure, see HCL Commerce Developer update overview.

  3. Re-apply any customizations, and follow Setting up an HCL Commerce development environment to enable any new features or components that are included with your new version, if necessary. Once you have completed your upgrade, you can re-validate your customizations and build customization package using the WCB tool.
    For example, customizations to the following files are overwritten during the upgrade and must be re-applied:
    • WCDE_installdir\LOBTools\WebContent\ckeditor\ckeditor.js
    • WCDE_installdir\LOBTools\WebContent\ckeditor\config.js
    • WCDE_installdir\LOBTools\WebContent\jsp\commerce\shell\restricted\ManagementCenterMain.jsp
    • WCDE_installdir\LOBTools\WebContent\WEB-INF\src\xml\commerce\shell\ApplicationMenuItems.xml
    • WCDE_installdir\LOBTools\src\com\ibm\commerce\foundation\client\lobtools\properties\ShellLOB.properties
    • WCDE_installdir\LOBTools\src\com\ibm\commerce\foundation\client\lobtools\properties\ShellLOB_en_US.properties
    • WCDE_installdir\LOBTools\WebContent\WEB-INF\src\xml\commerce\foundation\restricted\RichTextEditor.xml
    • WCDE_installdir\LOBTools\WebContent\WEB-INF\src\xml\commerce\foundation\restricted\IFrameTool.xml
    • workspace_dir\WC\xml\config\wc-server.xml
      Note:
      • If the wc-server.xml file contains the CrossTransactionCache tag, it is generally recommended to remove it so that the default configuration is used. If the defaults are not sufficient, the CrossTransactionCache tag can be added back within the InstanceProperties tag, specifying only the configuration settings that must be changed from the default values. For more information on the configuration settings for the CrossTransactionCache tag, including the default values, see Additional HCL Commerce data cache configuration.
      • If you have any other configuration updates in your wc-server.xml configuration file, you must merge those changes before migrating it to HCL Commerce Version 9.1 development or production environments.

        For example, to enable marketing in Management Center for HCL Commerce, see Enabling Management Center marketing features.

  4. Upgrade your HCL Commerce databases.

    Upgrading your database can require some data changes, depending on the specific releases that you are upgrading from, and upgrading to.

    This can include updates such as schema changes, or bootstrap data such as access control policies, for your database to function properly. It is always recommended to update your database before you upgrade your application.

    1. HCL Commerce Developer Within your HCL Commerce development environments, re-establish the connection with the development database by using the setdbtype utility.

      For more information, see Changing the development database type by using the setdbtype command.

    2. Update the database schema with the updatedb utility.

      For more information, see Updating the database to the latest database schema.

  5. Upgrade your HCL Commerce production environments.

    HCL Commerce Version 9 provides Docker images for all applications. Therefore, updating to the latest versions of these applications can be done very easily. Take the latest Docker images as base images, and re-apply your customization package to build your customized Docker images containing the features and fixes from the upgraded version. Then, deploy them the same way as they were previously. For more information, see HCL Commerce production update overview.

Results

Your environment is updated to a later version of HCL Commerce Version 9.

For more information on the update process, a list of available update packages and their features, and for required enablement procedures, see Updating HCL Commerce overview.