MQSeries.net :: View topic - Migration problems MQ Workflow from version 3.3.2 to 3.6

arcansed · Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2009 1:01 am Post subject:

This is a little history of the problem and some test we have done.

PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE

Four years ago, when we tried to do the first workflow migration to v3.5,
the infraestructure was:

WAS 5.1
MQ 5.3
WF 3.5
DB2 v.8.2 ISO-5586-1 32 bits

In that moment, there was a problem relative with the java version
compatibility with the other applications workflow talk with.

Today, we have this:

WAS 6.1
MQ 6.021
WF 3.6
DB2 v.8.2 ISO-5586-1

Step by step actions and tests

- Migration from Database DB2.v7.2 in 32 bits UTF-8 to a Database DB2.v8.2
a 64 bits ISO-5586-1
Event: The web client show the workitems, but when we click on the
properties viewer button, or checkout, force restart, force finish o delete
item, send a null pointer exception error, pointing to the
FmcContainerTemplate class from the package
\com\ibm\workflow\client\util\container\. in the line 129, the 'gen map'
function. The transfer and model viewer functions operate correctly.

- Migration from Database DB2.v7.2 in 32 bits UTF-8 to a Database DB2.v8.2
a 32 bits ISO-5586-1
Event: The web client show the workitems, but when we click on the
properties viewer button, or checkout, force restart, force finish o delete
item, send a null pointer exception error, pointing to the
FmcContainerTemplate class from the package
\com\ibm\workflow\client\util\container\. in the line 129, the 'gen map'
function. The transfer and model viewer functions operate correctly.

- Migration from Database DB2.v7.2 in 32 bits UTF-8 to a Database DB2.v8.2
a 64 bits UTF-8
Event: The web client show the workitems, but when we click on the
properties viewer button, or checkout, force restart, force finish o delete
item, send a null pointer exception error, pointing to the
FmcContainerTemplate class from the package
\com\ibm\workflow\client\util\container\. in the line 129, the 'gen map'
function. The transfer and model viewer functions operate correctly.

- Migration from Database DB2.v7.2 in 32 bits UTF-8 to a Database DB2.v8.2
a 32 bits UTF-8
Event: The error prevails.

After each migration process we tried to see with the web client and
workflow traces if there was any information about the database or the
workflow engine that showed us where the problem is.

We checked the table FMC CONTAINER and we compared it with the productive database and we found that there are some inconsistencies between the migrated database and the productive one. I mean, there are records in the productive database that there are not in the migrated one.

Among all the events we got a problem with the next queue: RTFinputqueue, it got full. This was derivated of the workitem expiration process. In order to free these messages was necessary to increase the database server and the workflow server resources. Once the queue was clean, we checked out in the web client the workitems we were working with and we still have the problem with the containers.

Additional tests with the workitem creation:

- We made a "create and start instance" over a completely new process
(diagram) generated in buildtime. These diagrams were previously loaded via
fmcibie to the runtime environment. In this case, we didn't have the
problem, all the functionality was correct: transfer, force restart,
checkout, properties viewer, force finish, delete item and model viewer.

- We load an old process we have in this moment in the productive
environment from the migrated buldtime (with fmcibie) and we reviewed some
previous workitems in that process (the migrated ones) and the problem
still remains.

- We export a complete business line process diagrams and we made a "create
and start instance" in one of these process. In this case we didn't have
the problem (with the new workitem), but the old workitems, the migrated
ones, still have the error.

We found that the migration process creates two new tables in the database
structure:
public_ai_list
private_ai_list

After an IBMer specilist recomendations we applied the SP 7 to Workflow
3.6.
The application server got more hardware resources and the queue
RTFinputqueue was free of all the messages it contained.
Now we got this:
When you click on the checkout button, the page send an http 500 error.
In the case of the force restart, force finish, delete item and propierties
viewer buttons, don't show the container elements.
The transfer and model viewer operate correctly.

We did another test, this time we migrate our test database in WF v3.3.2,
DB2v7.2 in 32 bits to WF v3.6 with SP7, DB2v8.2 in 64 bits.
The results:
Inmediately after the migration, we tried to do a "create and start
intance" over a "X" process and the web client dindn't show the
datastructure fields.
After loading a fdl file with some process (incluiding the "X" process),
the global data container and the default datastructure we can see the
containers for the "X" process and it was possible to create and start an
instance.

Any ideas about how to solve our container problems?
Thanks a lot.