Guys,

I’d like your feedback on the following: at the company I currently working for, we have two major webMethods environmets: one implemented with webMethods 4.01 and 4.6 and one implemented with 6.1. The two environments currently communicate via a 6.1 Broker. The 4.x side uses TN, whereas the 6.1 side does not.

A project was recently kicked off to upgrade the 4.x environment to 6.1, so this way we’ll have a common environment across the board. However, the following question has recently come up: since we’re already embarking on an upgrade project, should we simply take some extra time (if any) and upgrade all of our environments to 6.5?

If possible, I’d like your opinion on the following:
(1) How much more effort (if any) would be involved in upgrading the 4.x side to 6.5 instead of 6.1?
(2) How easy/difficult is an upgrade from 6.1 to 6.5?
(3) If the 4.x side is upgraded to 6.5, but we are unable to upgrade the 6.1 side, will we run into issues when attempting to communicate through the 6.1 Broker?
(4) How much would we gain/lose by going to 6.5 instead of 6.1? (I understand I can somewhat get this information through the release notes and etc, but I wouldn’t mind learning about your real life experiences.)

Thanks,
Percio

I bet upgrading 6.1 to 6.5 is easy effort,ofcourse older 4.x to 6.5 definetely be critical.If moving from 4.6 to 6.x(6.01 or 6.1) migration litt to more efforts needed.Since everyone know 6.01,6.1 have more stability after IS4.6.

Bottom line is what components currently you have on 4.x (IS,Broker,ATC’s,ERP Adapters,TN,EDI)etc…so it will have all factors and work around on how critical to move directly to 6.5 from old pre IS versions.

We also planning to upgrade IS 6.1 to 6.5 any advices,precautions,bottle necks in this regards are very helpful.

Hope some one chim here in detail.

HTH,
RMG

Well easy is relative. It depends on what components you are using in the webMethods product suite. There were some pretty significant changes from 6.1 to 6.5 especially around the database(If you are using processes, auditing to databases etc). Related to this is the new WmMonitor package which also includes the new my webMethods Server (whole new separate server process). The old WmMonitor is gone and has to be accessed from the new my webMethods Server. There are some critical fixes for this product as well, be sure to get them before driving yourself insane.

These components have had some challenges. The database schemas have changes especially around process, audit and also archive. You will be introduced to the new database script - oracle.bat/sh or sqlserver.bat.sh depending on your database, lots of fun there.

Having said that, if you are planning to upgrade anyway you might as well go for 6.5. webMethods new support policy has a more agressive end of life policy. No need to start off behind the eight ball.

Thank you RMG and Mark for your comments.

We do make extensive use of the WmMonitor, but only for monitoring services (ie. we do not have any process models in place.) So I will definitely look into the exact changes that were made to the Monitor.

Other than that, the only major components we really use are Trading Networks and the Broker. Everything else is pretty much just good-old flow and java services with heavy use of the JDBC and Flat File adapters on the 6.1 side and WmDB package on the 4.x environment. We don’t use ServiceNet, Manager, Optimize, or any of those newer tools. We are, however, planning on implementing the WmDeployer in the near future.

Thanks again,
Percio

One other item to consider. The next major release of Integration Server is not likely to be released until Q1 2007 and certainly could slip into Q2 2007.

That release will have major architectural changes to both IS and Developer and organizations will likely want to perform even more extensive regression testing on this release than with other releases with fewer architectural changes.

What this means is that the 6.5 release of Integration Server and Developer is the last major release for 12 - 18 months. You can upgrade to 6.5 and not worry about a new release rolling out in a quarter or two.

Sure, there will be service packs for 6.5 (one for Developer is coming soon, I hear), but you can stick with a current, stable release for 18-24 months before needing to upgrade again.

Mark

Mark Carlson,

I saw that in one of your previous posts you said, “I have to say that I’m not thrilled with the trickle-out release plan for 6.5. Now, I know the alternative is to wait until all components are ready to ship and that’s probably more frustrating (and hurts sales).”

That post is from August 2005 so I was wondering if you knew whether all of the 6.5 components are fully released by now and whether they are all stable.

One of our concerns is that since 6.5 is a fairly new platform with a much smaller user-base than 6.1, we are not completely sure if it’s stable or not. At this point in time, do you think that is a valid concern or has 6.5 proven to be a stable platform by now (ie. just as stable as 6.1)?

Thanks,
Percio