Upgrade Weblogic

1> Upgrading weblogic Server of the same base version.

Method 1: Fresh Install.

Installing a fresh target version of weblogic, deploying the applications, security configuration and other configurations using migration option in weblogic console. Once the target, version is tested and looks good, you expose the IP of the newer weblogic release to the end user by mapping the new ip to www url.

Method 2: Using the Upgrade Installer.

Oracle provides Weblogic upgrade installers that replaces the older APIs with the newer onces and also does some changes in the scripts so that the scripts pick up the newer version of JDK. However, it s recommended to stop the production till the upgrade installer finishes it's work. The installer may vary with respect to the time to finish its execution and that depends primarily upon the hardware configuration and the system settings.

Method 3: Changing the scripts.

Install a newer version of weblogic server. Check for the domain directory for the scripts and change existing BEA_Home or Oracle_Home to point to the newly installed BEA_Home and the existing Java_Home to the newly installed Java_Home. For the managed server change the same homes in the nodemanager.properties file.

Method 4: Soft Links.

This method according to me is the best, safest and fasted way of upgrading domains in the same Base versions. Also it has the lowest downtime :)

All we have to do is to create a soft link from BEA_Home of the older version to the BEA_Home of the newly installed weblogic. In the same fashion create a soft link from the Java_Home of the older version to point to the Java_Home of the newly installed version.

A restart of the servers and your Weblogic is upgraded.

Kindly suggests and share, if you have ideas to improving the process of upgradation.