Oracle offers the Upgrade Assistant tool for all of its Fusion Middleware products, including Oracle WebCenter Sites (OWCS) 12c. The Upgrade Assistant tool automates many upgrade tasks, including upgrading component schemas, configurations (WebLogic, etc.), and other standalone system configurations from OWCS 11g to 12c. This tool also offers certain validation scripts to verify post-upgrade.
However, the tool is not perfect. Along with some major known upgrade issues, there are also certain tasks that the Upgrade Assistant tool either ignores or overrides, which then becomes the developer’s time-consuming chore to fulfill these tasks manually. No need to worry. We’re here to help! Our Inspired ECM consultants have seen it all and we’re excited to help you navigate this frustrating experience.
Tasks not handled by the Upgrade Assistant:
- If the web application includes custom Java libraries (jar files) or custom static web resources (such as css, js, or images), you will have to manually migrate them to the upgraded environment after the upgrade process.
- WebCenter Sites 12c uses ODL logging framework and any custom Log4j log levels set on the 11g environment are not migrated to ODL logging.
- Any customizations done on 11g have to be ported manually to 12c. This includes most often-tweaked config files like MobilityService.xml, Presentationobject.dtd, etc.
- Though Lucene search indexes are re-enabled during the upgrade process, search results in Contributor UI are likely to be corrupted post upgrade. Read this blog for step-by-step instructions to help you fix this issue: https://www.inspiredecm.com/how-to-fix-lucene-search-issues-in-oracle-webcenter-sites/
- OWCS 12c requires the SQL Server database to be configured in a case-sensitive mode, so your old ics:sql tags may not work unless you provide the name of the table in the same case as specified in the SQL Server database.
- SitePlanTree is most likely corrupted post upgrade process. Read this blog for pro tips (including screenshots) to help you fix this issue: https://www.inspiredecm.com/fix-corrupted-siteplan-tree-oracle/
- Attribute editor customizations done in 11g may not be compatible with 12c OOTB core elements, so all your customizations need to be logically merged.
- The Upgrade Assistant tool is incapable of protecting your new or updated records of SystemLocaleString table during the 12c upgrade process.
- Modified assets won’t get saved in the content form when using Query Asset in PULLDOWN (Dropdown) Attribute Editor after upgrading to 12c.
- OWCS 12c and underlying stack have a limitation in executing 11g upgraded source code exceeding a certain number of lines of source code in .jsp files during runtime.
- Content forms get saved even though some of the mandatory fields don’t have a value.
Do you need help upgrading your Oracle WebCenter Sites environment from 11g to 12c before the December Premier Support deadline? Let Inspired ECM’s experienced consultants get your environment upgraded and running successfully today.
