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HCL Digital Experience Product Documentation
Welcome to the product documentation for HCL Digital Experience. Find information about how to install, configure, maintain, and use HCL Web Content Manager and HCL Portal Server, Enable, and Extend solutions.
HCL Digital Experience 8.5
Learn how to install, configure, troubleshoot, maintain, and use Version 8.5 of HCL Web Content Manager and HCL Portal Server, Enable, and Extend.
Migrating
Successful migration requires significant planning and preparation, understanding the tools that are involved, and careful execution of the appropriate steps in the order provided.
Planning for migration
Completing a thorough plan before migrating to the latest version of HCL Digital Experience has a direct impact in the effort invested during the actual migration. Become familiar with the environment you are migrating to (target environment). Also, make sure that the environment you are migrating from (source environment) is up to date with fixes and meets the requirements for migration.
Development considerations
The goal of the migration process is to ensure that the target environment works similarly to the source environment. However, there are deprecated and unsupported features and changes in supported technical specifications that can prevent this transition from being seamless. Review the following topics for guidance on the development work that is required to maintain the functionality of the source environment and also begin preparation for enabling new features and functionality.
Prepare applications and themes
After the move to HCL Digital Experience 8.5, it is possible that applications and themes that depend on deprecated features will not function properly. To validate custom applications and themes, it is recommended to set up a basic stand-alone HCL Portal 8.5 server.

HCL Digital Experience Product Documentation
Welcome to the product documentation for HCL Digital Experience. Find information about how to install, configure, maintain, and use HCL Web Content Manager and HCL Portal Server, Enable, and Extend solutions.
- HCL Digital Experience 9.5
- HCL Digital Experience 9.5 [Legacy Content]
- HCL Digital Experience 9.0
  Learn how to install, configure, troubleshoot, maintain, and use Version 9.0 of HCL Web Content Manager and HCL Portal Server, Enable, and Extend.
- HCL Digital Experience 8.5
  Learn how to install, configure, troubleshoot, maintain, and use Version 8.5 of HCL Web Content Manager and HCL Portal Server, Enable, and Extend.
  - Overview
    HCL Digital Experience (formerly IBM WebSphere Portal and IBM Web Content Manager) empowers you to create, manage, and deliver engaging omnichannel digital experiences to virtually all audiences with responsive content, targeted offers, seamlessly integrated applications, and consistent branding across channels (web, mobile. and hybrid mobile/web applications and more).
  - Roadmaps to deploy your system
    Review the roadmaps to understand the common deployment, configuration, migration, and integration patterns.
  - Roadmaps to create your website
    Review the roadmaps to understand how to create your website.
  - Online Help
    This Online Help is made available in the HCL Digital Experience Help Center for quick references on how to install, configure, maintain, and use HCL Digital Experience.
  - Installing
    HCL Digital Experience provides flexible deployment options that range from proof-of-concept where you can examine and test functionality to a highly available and scalable production environment. Review the planning information to learn more about hardware and software requirements, high availability, scalability, supported topologies, and much more. Select your operating system and then select the installation pattern that most reflects your business needs.
  - Configuring
    Run the following tasks after you install and deploy HCL Digital Experience. They address tasks that are typically run one time and have a global effect. Some configuration changes are made more frequently or do not have a global effect. These tasks are addressed in the Administering section.
  - Backup and restore
    Backup and recovery of data files and databases is an essential operation for any business system, particularly for data and applications that run in production environments. Create and follow a plan for backing up and recovering data on all tiers of your HCL Digital Experience deployment. IBM Installation Manager must also be included in backup and recovery planning. If you back up the HCL Portal file structure and then install a fix pack, your HCL Digital Experience and IBM Installation Manager become out of sync after you restore the HCL Portal file system. This condition is not recoverable.
  - Migrating
    Successful migration requires significant planning and preparation, understanding the tools that are involved, and careful execution of the appropriate steps in the order provided.
    - Overview
      Migration is the process of collecting configuration data and applications from an earlier installed version of HCL Digital Experience and merging them into a newer installed version. So that the new environment is identical to the earlier environment. For the z/OS® platform, the new version must be on the same server as the earlier version. Migration to a different (remote) server is not supported.
    - Planning for migration
      Completing a thorough plan before migrating to the latest version of HCL Digital Experience has a direct impact in the effort invested during the actual migration. Become familiar with the environment you are migrating to (target environment). Also, make sure that the environment you are migrating from (source environment) is up to date with fixes and meets the requirements for migration.
      - Supported migration paths
        Migration is supported between equivalent offerings. Starting with CF17, additional migration options are supported for HCL Portal server and Web Content Manager offerings.
      - Hardware considerations
        There might be cases where you are completing a remote migration to a new hardware configuration. This new server might have different requirements from the current environment you are migrating from. Generally, here are some key points to consider.
      - Operating systems considerations
        There might be cases where you upgrade not just to a newer version of HCL Digital Experience but also to a different operating system version. In that case, there might be a different set of system requirements and considerations to keep in mind.
      - Migration considerations
        There are a number of ways in which you can migrate HCL Digital Experience to a newer version. Some migration scenarios might offer a higher availability percentage over another. There are some scenarios where the migration can be done in parallel while your source environment remains in production. Other scenarios might require the production system to be disconnected just before you go live with the newly migrated system. Depending on your needs on high availability systems, you might choose one approach or another.
      - Development considerations
        The goal of the migration process is to ensure that the target environment works similarly to the source environment. However, there are deprecated and unsupported features and changes in supported technical specifications that can prevent this transition from being seamless. Review the following topics for guidance on the development work that is required to maintain the functionality of the source environment and also begin preparation for enabling new features and functionality.
        Deprecated features
        Review the features that were available in previous versions of HCL Digital Experience but are no longer available.
        Exploitation vs. toleration of applications and themes
        Toleration is the ability for the new version of HCL Digital Experience to support and host the portal site of the source environment exactly the way it was on the previous version. And, exploitation is the enhancement of the source environment site to take advantage of the new functionality that is made available in the new version.
        Prepare applications and themes
        After the move to HCL Digital Experience 8.5, it is possible that applications and themes that depend on deprecated features will not function properly. To validate custom applications and themes, it is recommended to set up a basic stand-alone HCL Portal 8.5 server.
        Supported toolbar customization
        In Version 8.5, only specific customizations are allowed for the HCL Digital Experience site toolbar. Only the supported toolbar customizations can be migrated to the new version.
        JavaServer Faces implementation
        The default JavaServer Faces (JSF) implementation has changed starting in WebSphere Application Server 8.
      - What to expect after you complete migration
        During the migration process, your portal applications, portlets, and databases are updated to the HCL Digital Experience 8.5 versions. However, not all of the new HCL Digital Experience 8.5 functionality and features are enabled by default. The following sections provide information on how various components are handled during migration, and what you can expect after the migration is complete.
    - Preparing your source environment
      Before you begin the steps for migration, you must perform some critical tasks on your source environment, such as creating back ups, installing the latest cumulative fix and one of the two most recent fix packs, and disabling automatic synchronization if you are migrating a cluster. Review the topics in this section, and perform the required tasks to ensure that your source environment remains functional and the migration completes successfully.
    - Setting up the target environment
      The migration requires you to install the required Portal and WebSphere® binary installations. To prepare your target environment, ensure that you have applied the latest cumulative fix and the most recent fix pack before you start migration. In addition, create new copies of the source databases for the target environment to use, and prepare the target environment for any custom applications that have dependencies or any other tasks that need to be performed for remote or cluster migrations.
    - Migrate data using the configuration wizard
      For Version 8.5, data, applications, databases, property files, security settings, and configuration are migrated using the Configuration Wizard. Use the roadmaps for cluster and stand-alone environments to guide you through the process.
    - Next steps
      To complete migration, you must first perform several post-migration steps that depend on how Portal is being used. After completing the post-migration steps, review the Enabling new functionality section to take advantage of the new tools available in HCL Digital Experience 8.5. Enabling new functionality should not be started until all post-migration steps have been completed.
  - Integrating
    Integrate HCL Digital Experience with software such as HCL Sametime to enable your users to collaborate more easily. You can also use the unified task list portlet to integrate HCL with your backend business process software, such as IBM Process Server.
  - Administering
    Use the administration tools that are provided with the portal to do various day-to-day administration tasks. There are two methods for editing portal setup: using the administration portlets or the XML configuration interface. The administration portlets are a convenient way to make real-time updates to the portal's configuration. While the XML configuration interface is suited to more advanced administration, including batch processing of updates.
  - Securing
    Security tasks include setting up property extension databases and custom user repositories, configuring and activating SSL, and configuring authentication. In addition, tasks such as activating Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) and NIST SP800-131a security modules and configuring external security managers such as Security Access Manager might be required to secure your portal environment.
  - Monitoring
    HCL Portal includes tools and features to help you monitor the portal site.
  - Setting up a website
    Setting up a website includes, creating pages, adding navigation, setting up search, and adding content to the site. Themes are used to customize the portal's look-and-feel. Out-of-the-box templates and the site wizard can help you set up your portal site faster. You can add wikis and blogs to your site and let users tag and rate content on your site.
  - Staging to production
    During portal solution development, the solution is initially developed, tested, and refined on one server or a limited number of servers. The solution is deployed later on live systems, referred to as the production environment. The process of moving the solution from the development environment to the production environment is called staging.
  - Developing
    This section includes developer documentation on extending applications and development assets for HCL Portal and HCL Web Content Manager.
  - Troubleshooting
    This section helps you resolve problems, use diagnostic tools and tracing to capture HCL Digital Experience system errors.
  - Reference
    View information that can help you use the Digital Experience Help Center including directory conventions, terms of use, trademarks, a glossary, and more.
  - Glossary
    This glossary includes terms and definitions for HCL Digital Experience.
  - Content Template Catalog 4.4
    The Content Template (CTC) is a set of templates that accelerate the process of building a website.

Prepare applications and themes | HCL Digital Experience

After the move to HCL Digital Experience 8.5, it is possible that applications and themes that depend on deprecated features will not function properly. To validate custom applications and themes, it is recommended to set up a basic stand-alone HCL Portal 8.5 server.

The benefit of setting up a basic stand-alone server for validating the custom applications and themes is that the work of preparing the applications and themes for HCL PortalVersion 8.5 can be done in parallel with migration, which can generally save time in the overall migration process.

This tactic can also be applied to any new custom applications or themes that are developed for Version 8.5. Rather than waiting for the HCL Portal 8.5 server migration to complete, you can begin development of the new applications and themes on a stand-alone server while the migration is taking place.