Migrate AIX Server

We did a migration of 8.0.3 apps / 8.0.3 environment to new hardware, using disk utilities that replicated the entire disk on the new server - so we started with a byte-for-byte copy of everything, and then made the necessary configuration changes on the target system, without reinstalling anything. Worked fine for us, and in similar circumstances I would do it the same way again, as I found this to be a relatively painless/low risk/fast method compared to the alternatives.

If you start with a different OS on the target server and restore a backup of the applications you can probably get it to work without much reinstalltion, although I think you will probably need to reinstall Server Express. In my opinion however, this is more difficult/higher risk than the previous scenario.

With either of these approaches, you would be using a unsupported migration method, and would need to manually change various configuration files. Since you are on a completely different server you can test the process multiple times as necessary until you are confident you have all the changes.

In our case, we kept the same host alias, so clients could continue to refer to the same name as before, and DNS routed requests to the new server after golive.

Another thing that makes the migration easier with this method is if you keep the same path names & productline name. You don't have to do so, but if you change them you have more to update.

If you are uncomfortable with this non-standard process however, you can certainly go the reinstall route. In that case, I would reinstall everything (DB, environment, web apps), except the application, and then use the product line copy methodology to copy the application from the source system to the new environment. But not the new product line copy process documented in the AMT guide. Theoretically that should work, but I never got it to work correctly when we were still on an 8.0.3 environment. Instead use the old productline copy procedure which should be documented in a KB article. (Except we did not use Lawson tools to copy Oracle data but Oracle utilities instead.)

Ben, was that migration goint from/to the same OS or different OS levels?  I'm trying to find out what difficulties that will add.

Thanks,
Tami

Sorry Ben, missed your second paragraph so scratch my last question.

the method you suggested could be used under a DR situation as well, so I'm wondering what config files need to be changed.  I suppose anywhere the server name or IP is housed in any lawson config or oracle config files.

Does the fact that I have 5.2 to 5.3 mean that I can't just pick up a backup and restore it to the new box?

Thanks,
Tami

I personally think this is fraught with error, and should only be used if you are doing a restore that includes the OS and to same hardware family, since there are etc files (i.e. lawson.env, groups/passwd files, printers, crontabs, startup/shutdown scripts, etc.) that will need to be copied, etc.

I honestly think you will spend as much time troubleshooting and documenting as you would have spent reinstalling...

However, assuming you're server/software were fairly correctly installed, and rootvg contains just AIX you *should* be able to restore the filesystems that contain Lawson, Oracle, (tomcat?), (webserver?) and then reinstall COBOL. etc.

You will also need to recompile lacobrts (i.e. cmprts) as well as cmporaXX, and do a full-recompile of Lawson apps (LOGAN and product lines, etc.)

Assuming you are copying the entire system OS & all, check the following items. Your list of changes may vary depending on your current configuration, whether you are changing IP address, hostname/alias, or both, etc.

On web server:
... apache/cgi-lawson/logan.env LRS_SERVER value
... apache/htdocs/lawson/javascript/loganenv.js LRS_SERVER
http.conf: Depending on your configuration, you might need to update ServerName, VirtualHost and NameVirtualHost lines

On Tomcat, eli.properties file APPSERVER value
in webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/web.xml, check host
in webapps/smart-recon/WEB-INF/web.xml if present, check host

On the application server:
$CGIDIR/rmi/PoolMgr.properties rmi_server
In the application:
ED00 address
RD00 WF_SERVER setting

MSCM filter.properties - check web server