OpenWGA 7.0 - Updating to OpenWGA 7.0

Use the instructions here if some of the situations where a full upgrade is unwise apply to you.

Using this guide you can choose to only patch certain content stores while keeping others on the old format. You can also choose ignore patch level 4 for your content stores altogether and only patch the plugin content stores. Note however that content stores that are not upgraded to patch level 4 will not be able to utilize the new functionalities described above.

Also if you are using an OpenWGA cluster you will find instructions about the right order of operations in this guide.

When using a cluster a special order of operations should be used to ensure that all nodes all the time will be able to serve all of your file data.

The reason is that you can only run the upgrade task on one node. The other nodes of your cluster where the upgrade process is not running will not automatically pick up the updated patch level of your content stores. Because of this they won't be able to directly read files in the upgraded file storage format, which is then created for new files. They first need to pick up the patch in order to be able to read them.

• First upgrade all nodes to OpenWGA 7.0
• If possible: Stop authoring operations on your cluster
• Choose a server where to perform the upgrade and take it out of service on the cluster
• Perform the patch process on this server either using "Global content store upgrade" with option "Directly upgrade file storage..." deactivated or "Individual content store upgrade" if you do not want to patch all content stores.
• Take the this server back into service
• Reconnect all patched content stores on the other nodes, taking them out of service individually while doing this.
• Authoring may now be allowed again
• Run the file storage upgrade for patched content stores individually using the instructions from Individual file storage upgrade. You may also choose to completely avoid this task.

If you have very limited database storage space or server processing power you may want to deactivate file derivates either for individual content stores or globally. This should be done prior to upgrading content stores because OpenWGA will automatically create file derivates for your image file attachments after the content stores have been patched and the storage format was upgraded.

To globally disable file derivates for all content stores do the following:

• Mark checkbox "Expert mode" in admin client to the top right
• Open menu "Configuration > Advanced configuration"
• Change to tab "File Derivates" and click button "Edit" there
• On setting "Derivate update process" choose "Disabled" and save via button "Save"

To disable file derivates for individual content stores do the following:

• Open the configuration of the app, whose content store should not have file derivates, in admin client menu "Web Applications"
• Click the "Edit" button
• On section "Publishing settings" click "show/hide more options"
• Find option "File derivates" from the list of optional database properties, click it to add and choose setting "Off" for it
• Save your changes via button "Save"

The global content store upgrade is a process for upgrading multiple content stores at once. It can either patch all content stores or patch content stores of OpenWGA plugins only. 

Even if you choose to patch the content stores of only some of your apps, or of no apps at all, then you still can (and should) upgrade the private content stores of OpenWGA plugins. These are internal databases, separate from your apps data, that are owned by individual plugins and cannot be accessed by other OpenWGA servers. Also they are stored on an internal database server where OpenWGA has full rights. So the reasons for not upgrading content stores do not apply to them. (For more information about plugin content stores see What is a plugin?).

You find the global content store upgrade when opening OpenWGA admin client. On the page that comes up - normally "Runtime > Status" on the menu - you should find a button Upgrade content stores to the top right. (Sometimes you have to reload the admin client page for it to show up):

Click the button to bring up the settings for the upgrade:

Choose the desired settings for the upgrade from section "Upgrade settings":

Setting "What content stores to upgrade"

• Choose Update all connected content stores if you want to upgrade everything because none of the reasons not to upgrade do apply to any of your content stores
• Or choose Upgrade OpenWGA plugins only while will leave your apps and their content stores untouched, so you can upgrade them one by one later via Individual content store upgrade, if desired.

Setting "Directly upgrade file storage after patching"

This option controls if the file attachments on the content stores should directly be migrated to the new "distinct file contents" storage format after patching. This is a process that may take a very long time to finish as each single file attachment needs to be converted. Your apps/plugins will be operative while this process runs and all upgraded files stay retrievable for all the time. Nevertheless, be aware of the following facts:

• This is not recommended when using an OpenWGA cluster as described in Order of operations in a cluster
  
• This is a process that will put additional load on your server which may be unwise to have on the peak usage time of your website. 

Because of these facts you may not want to directly upgrade file attachments. In that case uncheck this setting and see Individual file storage upgrade on how to do this later for each app individually. You can also choose to do no batch upgrade at all. Newly created files will automatically be stored on the new format while old ones remain operative in the old format.

Performing the upgrade

Once finished with the settings you can click button start upgrade. This will open a window where you can see the log of the patching/upgrading process. If the process runs for a long time you can pickup the log of this task later under admin client menu "Jobs". There it should come up as temporary job with description "Upgrading content stores". Once you see the line "OpenWGA Content Store 5 Patch Task finished successfully" on the log all of your apps and plugins will again be operative. After that the optional file storage upgrade task will run.

For OpenWGA content stores that are not patched on the global upgrade you can do so individually when opening "Web Applications" on the admin client menu and opening the configuration of the app to upgrade. There on the right of the "contentstore configuration" section you find the "Database" action menu containing a menu item to do the upgrade:

Click it to bring up the settings for the upgrade:

Click button Apply the patches here if you want OpenWGA to patch this content store now. This will open a window where you can see the log of the patching/upgrading process.

Click button Show the DDL code of the patches if the database server user used by OpenWGA does not have the appropriate rights to do the patch operations. This will bring up a window containing all DDL code that OpenWGA would execute on the database. You can copy this code and then execute it on the backend database with any SQL console of your choice, using a database server login that is allowed to do these operations. After that you should reconnect the app of this content store for OpenWGA to pick up the changes.

After manually patching the content store, or doing a global patch without directly upgrading file storage you might still want to upgrade its file attachment data to the new "distinct file contents" format for all new OpenWGA 6.3 features to be enabled on it.

In both cases you will find the following item on the database action menu if your content store actually contains file attachments (after patching you may need to reload the admin client page to bring it up):

Click it to bring up a short description of the process. Your apps/plugins will be operative while this process runs and all upgraded files stay retrievable for all the time. Nevertheless, this is a process that may run for a very log time - depending on the amount of file attachment data - and will put additional load on your server which may be unwise to have on the peak usage time of your website. Click button upgrade file storage to actually start the process. A window will come up to show the progress of the job. If the job runs for a long time you can pick up the job log again on admin client menu "Jobs". There it will come up as temporary job with description "Upgrading file storage of app '<dbkey>'".