The LawsonGuru Letter, brought to you by Decision Analytics  
   

July 2006

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In this issue:
1. Guest Spot: Lawson 9.0 Web App Redeployment via Scripting
2. Worthwhile Reading
3. Lawson Tips & Tricks

The LawsonGuru Letter is a free periodic newsletter providing provocative commentary on issues important to the Lawson Software community.  The LawsonGuru Letter is published by—and is solely the opinion of—John Henley of Decision Analytics.

Visit Decision Analytics at https://www.danalytics.com. For subscription information, see the bottom of this message.  The LawsonGuru Letter is not affiliated with Lawson Software.

Welcome back to Alexsei Wolff, who joins us for another turn in the Guest Spot!

   
       
  Before we get started...    
       
 

I Need your Input on RMI Stability

   
       
 

It will be a while before everyone gets upgraded to LSF 9.0. In the meantime, we'll still be running the 8.0.x Environment.

So, I'm planning an article or two on RMI/Tomcat/Portal stability, and I need your input.
Specifically, here's what I'm looking for:

  • How are global and/or 24x7 organizations dealing with having to periodically restart RMI?

  • What versions, ESPs, patches, settings, etc. seem to make it more stable?

  • What software combinations and/or platforms (Tomcat/Apache, Tomcat/IIS, Websphere, etc. etc.) seem to perform the most reliably?

  • If you've suffered from RMI instability, have you contacted Lawson? If so, were you satisfied with their response?

Send your submissions to mailto:letter-editor@lawsonguru.com.

   
       
  1. Guest Spot: Lawson 9.0 Web App Redeployment via Scripting )  
     
       
  Summary

As more and more of us migrate to Lawson System Foundation (LSF) 9.0 (including WebSphere) you’ll be called upon to “Re-Deploy your Web Applications” each time you install a LSF patch or Service Pack.

The Web Applications include Lawson Security, BPM (a.k.a. Process Flow), and IOS. The above applications are delivered by Lawson as Enterprise Archive files (.ear) and need to be re-deployed to your WebSphere Application Server (WAS) to take advantage of new functionality and bug fixes.

The Lawson recommended process is to login to the WAS admin console and click thru several screens as you:

  1. Stop the Enterprise Applications (Lawson Security, BPM, and IOS)
  2. Uninstall the Enterprise Applications
  3. Synchronize the Nodes
  4. Install each ear File
  5. Save to the Master Configuration
  6. Synchronize the Nodes again
  7. Start the applications
  8. Generate the WebServer plugin-cfg.xml file
  9. Propagate the plugin-cfg.xml file (If your web server is remote from WAS)

These 9 steps are time consuming and error prone but luckily there is an easier way to deal with this situation. IBM provides two options for administering WAS:

1.  Administrative Console – A web enabled application that allows you to do most administrative, installation, and configuration tasks.  Using this option is recommended if you are not yet familiar with WebSphere and need some hand holding along the way. 

Figure 1. Snapshot of the administrative console.

2. wsadmin –A command line utility that allows interactive and scripting capabilities to manage your WebSphere Application Server. This tool uses the Bean Scripting Framework (BSF), which supports a couple of scripting languages. The two supported scripting languages as of today are Jacl and Jython. Using this tool along with either of the scripting languages allows you to automate the tasks thereby increasing repeatability and reducing errors.

So what is Jacl and Jython?

Both Jacl and Jython are JVM embedded versions of the popular scripting languages Tcl and Python respectively. If you know either of these languages already you are in luck. If you don’t then the toughest thing about them is choosing which one to standardize upon. After looking at each one in detail I decided to use Jython since its object oriented syntax was more familiar to me. The downside to Jython is that it’s only been in use with WebSphere since version 6.0 and therefore there are not too many examples out on the net to use as a starting point. To learn more about jython visit: http://www.jython.org.

Both of these languages interact with the wsadmin tool via JMX and 4 standard Mbeans to allow full access and control of the different administrative components of WAS.

Figure 2.  wsadmin Mbeans

  • AdminApp – install, modify, and administer applications.
  • AdminConfig – create, change WebSphere Application Server static configuration.
  • AdminControl – work with live running objects, perform traces and data type conversion.
  • AdminTask – access administrative commands to provide alternate ways to access configuration commands.

For additional information on all the valid methods and options available for these Mbeans refer to the following link:
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/webservers/appserv/was/library/ and search for “Using the Administrative Clients”.

Sample Script

The following sample script uses Jython to demonstrate the re-deployment process of the Lawson Web Application “BPM”. Feel free to use the sample script below as a starting point to develop your own dynamic Jython scripts to use in your patch application process. There are a myriad of ways to improve this script to be more dynamic but I leave that as an exercise for the reader. Enjoy!

 

print "Starting Script"

appName='BPM'

cellname='erpappCell01'
nodename='erpappNode01'
servername='server1'

print "Obtaining the Application Manager Mbean"
appManager=AdminControl.queryNames('cell='+cellname+',node='+nodename+',type=ApplicationManager,process='+servername+',*')

AdminControl.invoke(appManager, 'stopApplication', appName)
AdminApp.uninstall(appName)
print "Applications Stopped and Uninstalled"
print "Saving to Master Configuration"
AdminConfig.save()

#Node Synchronization
print "Synchronizing the nodes"
Sync1=AdminControl.completeObjectName('type=NodeSync,node='+nodename+',*')
AdminControl.invoke(Sync1, 'sync')

print "Installing Application BPM"

OptStr ='[ -nopreCompileJSPs -distributeApp -nouseMetaDataFromBinary '
OptStr += '-nodeployejb -appname BPM -createMBeansForResources '
OptStr += '-noreloadEnabled -nodeployws -validateinstall warn -noprocessEmbeddedConfig '
OptStr += '-MapModulesToServers [[bpm.war bpm.war,WEB-INF/web.xml WebSphere:cell'
OptStr += '='+cellname+',node='+nodename+',server='+servername+']] '
OptStr += '-MapWebModToVH [[bpm.war bpm.war,WEB-INF/web.xml default_host]]]'

AdminApp.install('/lawson/test/gen/assembly/components/ear/bpm.ear', OptStr)

print "Saving to Master Configuration and Synchronizing the Nodes"
AdminConfig.save()
Sync1=AdminControl.completeObjectName('type=NodeSync,node='+nodename+',*')
AdminControl.invoke(Sync1, 'sync')

print "Start the application BPM"
AdminControl.invoke(appManager, 'startApplication', appName)

print "\nScript Completed"

 
   
     
  2. Worthwhile Reading )  
       
  Teamwork! Secrets of Greatness

- QUOTE OF THE ISSUE –

“The world is full of willing people,
some willing to work, the
rest willing to let them.”

-- Robert Frost

Teams are just about everywhere you look. What makes them tick?
Fortune, June 1, 2006
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/great_teams/

Oracle SQL Developer Soars
Bring the power of a GUI-based workbench to SQL and PL/SQL.
Oracle Magazine, May/June 2006
http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/06-may/o36sql.html

The SOA lifecycle
Service-oriented architecture is an organic idea, not a technology.
Our experts explain how to plan, build, and manage an SOA without getting lost in the weeds.
Infoworld, May 8, 2006
http://www.infoworld.com/reports/19SRsoalife.html
   
       
       
       
 
 
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Read the latest issue: http://www.carrollsearch.com/newsletter/mcbjune2006web.htm
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  3. Lawson Tips & Tricks )  
       
 

This month's submission comes from David Williams of Paradigm Business Solutions.

Date to String in JavaScript

[This tip only works with locales that enter dates in MM/DD/CCYY formats.  Next month I'll share some code for handling the others -- Ed.]

Here’s the JavaScript expression I use in ProcessFlow to convert a date value in a string variable to an AGS format.  The value of my variable RQDATE (the requested delivery date value from the requisition) = 02/29/2006.  I want to use this value to push the requisition line to a PO via the PO Worksheet (PO23) and need this date to be represented in AGS (yyyymmdd) format.

JavaScript doesn’t have a Right, Left or Mid expression like other languages so when using an Assign node; I am taking the date from my RQDATE variable and reformatting it to my RQDELDT variable:

RQDELDT = RQDATE.charAt(6) + RQDATE.charAt(7) + RQDATE.charAt(8) + RQDATE.charAt(9) + RQDATE.charAt(0) + RQDATE.charAt(1) + RQDATE.charAt(3) + RQDATE.charAt(4)

The first character position in JavaScript is 0 (unlike other languages which identify the first character position as 1) so the year is in positions 6 through 9, the month is in positions 0 + 1 and the day is in positions 3 + 4 (02/29/2006 position values are 0-9 instead of 1-10).

The JavaScript expression is selecting the character at – charAt – the position specified within the parenthesis and assigning it to the RQDELST variable. The plus (+) isn’t adding the value from each position, it’s appending those values so that the RQDELDT variable = 20060229.

I can now use the RQDELDT variable in my AGS call to add the requisition line to the PO and assign the correct requested delivery date.

   
       
     
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