I'd like to know if WebFOCUS 8 can be installed on the same machine as WebFOCUS 7.7.x, without having to use a virtual machine. Perhaps by using different port numbers for the client and reporting servers of the two versions...

Thanks,

I don't see why not. Just put them in a seperate directories. I never just install on the root drive, I always install a version in a directory to keep them seperate. /WebF77 or /WebF8.

matt, thanks. I guess it should work, because Tomcat is installed within the ibi/WebFOCUSnn folder.

My guess is that Matt is correct, just putting them in different directories should be enough. The reporting servers though would need to use different ports. You probably can run the clients out of the same tomcat too if you want. I currently have my dev setup with 3 clients running out of one tomcat(2 of them for testing different things 1 for report development. 2 of the clients are 7703 HF7 and the other is a base 7703) and had at one point 2 reporting servers running off my other box (we recently went from RS 7703M to 7704M and I had them running in parallel while I configured them). I would assume you should be able to do the same thing with WF7/WF8. But you wouldn't be able to share the same basedir like I do...

If its the Server and Web Client, yes, I think so.

Not sure about DS, or what ever the new one is called in 8.

Are you getting WF 8 Francis ?

We will be installing it in a sandbox environment...

Please keep us updated.

In particular, any difficulties in the migration.

Hi, Just to add on to this.

If you want both Client/Server installations to operate as if they were "regular" installations with the default context names etc., then the two points to watch out for are "approot" and the web server/application server (e.g. tomcat) pieces.
The "approot" part is easily addressed if you install in two completely separate directories as Matt suggested.
However, for the tomcat part you preferably want to have two separate tomcat instances/services running (obviously not sharing ports).
I think the installation guide articulates it quite well:
Do not choose any of the automatic web server or application server configuration options
for additional WebFOCUS instances. You must manually configure all but the first
WebFOCUS instance you install.

You can install different versions of Developer Studio also. They will automatically install into their own directories. You toggle between them by running 'ThisFoci.bat' from the appropriate bin directory. In my case they are c:\ibi\DevStudio77\bin and c:\ibi\DevStudio80\bin.

Why yes they can! We have a separate .bat script we run for each one in order to set up the necessary environment. I believe an ibi person (Brian Larkin) created these for us.

Here's one that changes 7.7 to 8. Modify the 5 lines at the bottom to create one that does the reverse (changes environment from 8 to ? (yours)).

cls

ECHO OFF
REM The next three lines (following these comments) allow this batch file to be "Run as Administrator" on Vista and higher
REM NOTE: Running as administrator changes the default directory to the system directory which prevents proper registration
PUSHD .
FOR /F %%I IN ("%~s0") DO SET BATDIR=%%~dpI
CD /D "%BATDIR%"
ECHO ON

REM Introduce a delay of 2 seconds between each regsvr32 command

regsvr32 /u /s /c gfa.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /u /s /c gfaview.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /u /s /c gfw.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /u /s /c gfwview.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /u /s /c exnode.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /u /s /c progdlg.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /u /s /c befocus.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /u /s /c dragdrill.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /u /s /c wfscom.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /u /s /c stylepreview.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /u /s /c ibirootview.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /u /s /c mrews.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /u /s /c fpar.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /u /s /c deployview.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /u /s /c cdedeploy.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /u /s /c gcconnct.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /u /s /c SccInfoSync.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /u /s /c ax_ug.ocx
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c gfa.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c gfaview.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c gfw.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c gfwview.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c exnode.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c progdlg.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c befocus.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c dragdrill.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c wfscom.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c stylepreview.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c ibirootview.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c mrews.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c fpar.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c deployview.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c cdedeploy.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c gcconnct.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c SccInfoSync.dll
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3 > nul
regsvr32 /s /c ax_ug.ocx

POPD

cd "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Information Builders"
ren wfscom.xml "wfscom 77 - Copy.xml"
copy "wfscom 80- Copy.xml" wfscom.xml
cd C:\ibi\DevStudio80\bin
start C:\ibi\DevStudio80\bin\focshell.exe

I think if you want to keep the two separate and running at the same time, and have the same alias, just use a different instance of tomcat and run on a different port.

The migration itself isn’t difficult, it’s the “modernization” part of it to take advantage of the Resource Template and security is where I went south. It’s not fully documented yet. I wanted to clean up the folder structure of what WF 7 does in MRE and simplify it so I created all brand new folders using the Enterprise Domain Resource Template and copying over my migrated existing content. By doing this, I broke the handles that linked fex’s in HTML pages and other fex’s.

Fortunately, we don’t have a lot of content in MRE so the work to re-create and re-link items wasn’t that extensive. IBI does have a method to follow now to help with the “modernization” to not break the handles. I believe they will be covering that at Summit this year.

So far, I like the new version. The security is overwhelming and I am still learning a lot about it. I like the integration with LDAP. I like the new functionality of “Alternate” zones if you are using Single Sign on you can specify an IP range to bypass SSO to login. This is very helpful if you are in a clustered environment and need to change a setting on each node of the cluster.

As far as development, I haven’t noticed too much of a difference, although I haven’t done really any new development, just more or less minor changes to existing code. I did notice that the Tree Control has more functionality, which was a plus for me.

I hope this helps anyone who is looking at WF 8.

Thanks everyone for your tips.

JALDbaDev - if ThisFoci.bat does the job, I wonder why a complex command file like that one is required.

MattC - it is exactly the "modernization" of MRE that I'm concerned about.