Best Practice for Downgrading J2EE/Portal Patch Version

[Matt_Fraser]

Hello all,

We're trying to determine the best path to follow and would appreciate any advice. We have an existing Portal implementation with ESS/MSS which has been live for almost a year. It is on NW2004s (i.e., 7.0) and in production it is on ERP stack 8 (ESS stack 8, J2EE stack 11), which matches up with the backend ECC system for the most part. The Portal is under NWDI control, as we have customized the ESS and MSS web dynpros a little bit. So far so good.

However, we were starting a round of implementing SP stacks this summer, and after getting started with the DEV portal, getting it up to ESS stack 12, J2EE stack 14, the organization decided, due to workload and time constraints, to defer the SP stack application for six months. So, the new sp stack is only in the DEV portal, it's not in QA or PRD, and it's not on the DEV ECC system. We have learned, and experienced for ourselves, that there are certain functions which do not work, or do not work well, in MSS when the MSS Portal components are at a higher sp level than the ECC HR components, and we don't really want to have the DEV Portal out of sync with its backend, as well as QA and PRD, for six months. This is especially true as when we revisit the sp's in six months, it will no doubt be to a higher stack level, and this out-of-sync condition will just complicate things then.

So, we'd like to roll the DEV portal back to its prior sp level. The question is, how? There doesn't appear to be a way to do it with JSPM. Should we use SDM with the "update deployed SDAs/SCAs that have any version" option to overwrite the newer components with the older one? Or should we use SDM to undeploy what's on there now and just redeploy the older components with JSPM? With either of these options, what complications will we encounter with NWDI? Or should we try to restore the DEV portal from backup?

And if we do restore from backup... well, just what's involved in that? I'm fully conversant with restoring ABAP systems (we are on SQL Server 2005 by the way), even migrating ABAP systems to new servers, changing SIDs, refreshing QA systems from PRD, all of that. But I haven't worked as long with the J2EE engine, and I'm aware that much of the 'system' is not actually in the database, but in the filesystem. So, which folders would I need to restore along with the database? What considerations with NWDI do I need to be cognizant of? I haven't found any guides or recommendations on this approach so far, so I'm hoping for some direction here.

Best regards, and thanks in advance,

Matt

[Former Member]

Is there any document out there that would tell you of the compatibility between back end ECC and Portal?

Jeremy

[former_member186263]

Hi Jeremy,

Ideally this question should be part of a different thread looks like.

You can check out https://websmp209.sap-ag.de/sp-stacks and click on your version/component to find the SP stacks of NW that are compatible.

[Former Member]

Hello Matt,

First let me correct you on the statement that most part of the J2EE is on the file system. That is no true. Most part of J2EE Engine is kept in the DB and on the file system. Everything under /j2ee/cluster/dispatcher and /j2ee/cluster/serverX is in the database and if you delete these folders they will be fully restored on startup of the server.

You can not undeploy the core components of the J2EE Engine and then redeploy them. If you do that significant part of the information generated during the installation will be lost and the J2EE Engine will be almost irreversibly broken.

Forced redeployment of the older version works for single applications, but on a grand scale I donu2019t think it will work. There are too many dependencies that will be broken and the deployments of many components will fail.

That leaves us with two options.

1. Restore from backup. Please refer to the following link for information:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/4b/d8f23ea4b42e5ae10000000a114084/frameset.htm

2. System copy from some of the other systems.

There are different kinds of system copy. Please start from the following link for basic information about system copy:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw70/helpdata/en/a2/2f0c173a5e43d19585724239ff4de7/frameset.htm

For more comprehensive information see SAP Service Marketplace at http://service.sap.com/systemcopy

Regards,

Ventsi Tsachev

Technology Development Support (J2EE Engine)

SAP Labs, Palo Alto, Ca (USA)

[Matt_Fraser]

Ventsi,

I thought I had replied earlier to say that your response was very helpful, but perhaps I neglected that. It was very helpful. In any case, now it is several months later and the problem has essentially resolved itself, as we have begun the process of applying the higher level of support packages (the higher support stack) to the DEV system, simply overwriting the intermediate patches that were already there. So, there no longer is a need to roll back the earlier patches.

Thanks,

--Matt