Urgent : Migration

[Niharika Srivastav]

Hi,
If in the middle of the project, I got to migrate my application from VAJ to WSAD. What are the things I'm supposed to do ?
I'll appreciate quick replies.
Thanks.
Niharika
SCJP2
IBM Certified Developer - XML & Related Technologies

[Balbir Singh]

Hi Niharika,
Well I can guarantee you its a very tedious job. If you are familiar with WSAD then it wont be that difficult otherwise you will have to explore a lot. There are different prospectives in WSAD like Java,J2EE,Server,Team,etc. In our project we imported all our core/utility java files (as zip file) in the Java prospective and the bean classes in the J2EE prospective (as EJB jar with .ser file - EJB1.0 since we are migrating to EJB1.1), then provide the references to them in the "Java Build Path". The best part is that WSAD is faster than VAJ but the mockery is that it is not stable, and you have to keep it updated with the fixpacks. We are using CVS for team repository in WSAD, so you have to install it seperately.

[AnjanaRao]

Hi
Can u tell me whats wsad all about is it another IDE. Reply awaited.
Anjana

[Kyle Brown]

Anjana,
There are several threads on WSAD and Eclipse in the "IDE" forum of JavaRanch. You might want to browse there.
And yes, WSAD is a new IDE from IBM that is the successor to VAJ.
Kyle

[Paresh Sharma]

WSAD is a better tool than VAJ, no doubts on this. only concern is that if a developer is used to VAJ extensively, he might find the tool crazy in the beginning. :-)
Classes are to be imported as zip/jar files(VAj directly imports classes though). Dependencies are to be given in Java Build Path. Also everything is in terms of ears(containing wars and jars).Communiaction between a java perspective and J2EE perspective is not present. Hence dependencies have to be created while development. Assembly of components is another issue under team development.
In my opinion, migrating the project when the development is in progress would not be a good option because both WSAD and WAS 4.0 involve a paradigm shift in the approach as to how to deploy and use the components.
Paresh

[Niharika Srivastav]

Thanks a lot!!
but can anybody tell me if CodePro Studio helps migrating from VAJ to WSAD.
Thanks again,
Niharika

[Tom Hennigan]

If you can afford CodePro Studio, both ramp-up-time-wise as well as cash, then it might offer some automated processes that might prove helpful. IBM does not yet provide extensive documentation and Discussion Groups all too often list only pertinenbt questions --- no answers.
Location of common code and utility classes represented the biggest challenge to my team. We are still trying to find a way to use a legacy version (non-J2EE and WebSphere 5) of MQ without including it inside the EAR file.
Good luck.

[Tom Hennigan]

Just spent 3 months converting all of my firm's VAJ-developed/maintained applications running on v3.02 WAS to WSAD 5.0 (trial --- no money to buy yet, so hads to reformat and re-install) running on v5 iSeries WAS.
Some pointers. If your old applications used .properties files, you must decide how/where to loacte these. Our applications were simply Web applications, but still need both a WAR file as well as an EAR file. Just to prove concept, we placed .properties files in root of the J2EE Project, but later decided to read them from file system. To do so, use an <init-param>/localeof_propertiesFiles</init-param> in web.xml.
Legacy services like MQ Series and JDBC libraries posed another hurdle. Use WSAD Help to learn about "Using External Jars". A great idea of IBM was to provide WSAD Help on-line at:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wsphelp/index.jsp
Using this site, you preserve resources in your WSAD workspace.
Use right-click on Project -> (and pick) Properties then pick Libraries. There are choices, here. To use absolute path locations, pick "Add External Jar". To specify more of a relative path pick "Add Variable". When moving from WSAD Unit-testing stage to WAS System-test stage, I learned that our AS/400 environment cannot deal with the drive letter specification required by Windows-WSAD. Roughly, on WAS 5 Admin Console, "Shared Libraries" roughly equate to WSAD "Add External Jar" and "WebSphere Managed Variables" roughly equate to WSAD "Add Variable" (sort of like setting a "Windows Environment Variable".
The Help files help a lot. The WebSphere Developer Domain provides plenty of Articles and Redbooks, but I found the Help files most helpful.
So far, I like using WSAD. Next we must install ClearCase LT.
Good luck!
Tom Hennigan
SCJD

[Tom Hennigan]

Correction to my post above. Use this click-path to map to external jars from Project -> Properties -> Java Build Path -> Libraries.
Then you have choices: "Add External Jar" or "Add Variable"