Generate an inventory of the application environment by identifying the following components:

• Administration Server and the computer on which it resides

• Managed Servers and the computer(s) on which they reside

• Location of the applications (including all external client applications)

• External resources, for example:

  • Databases used to store persisted and application data

  • Firewalls

  • Load balancers

• Tools, scripts, templates, and source code used for automating the tasks required to create the application environment

You can view a sample application environment in Overview of the Upgrade Process.

Supported configurations (for example, JDK versions, Operating System versions, Web server versions, and database versions) have changed for WebLogic Server 14.1.2.0.0. You may be required to upgrade your environments to the supported versions of these and other products.

For information about supported configurations, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Supported System Configurations on Oracle Technology Network (OTN).

For databases, note that:

• The evaluation database available from the installation program that is provided for use by the sample applications and code examples, and as a demonstration database, is Derby. Derby is an open source relational database management system based on Java, JDBC, and SQL standards. For more information about Derby, see http://db.apache.org/derby/.

• The Oracle Thin Drivers are included as part of the WebLogic Server installation.

• If you are using an Oracle OCI database driver and want to change to use a Thin database driver, you must remove the server property (as illustrated below) from the generated JDBC module. For example:

  <property> 
    <name>server</name> 
    <value>servername</value> 
  </property> 
  

• The Oracle Thin Drivers are installed with WebLogic Server and are ready for use. For more information about using these drivers, see JDBC Drivers Installed with WebLogic Server in Administering JDBC Data Sources for Oracle WebLogic Server.

Most existing WebLogic Server applications can be run without modification in the new WebLogic Server 14.1.2.0.0 application environment.

Using the information gathered in the preceding steps, create a plan for upgrading your application environment.

Identify the scope and timing of the upgrade process, based on your business needs. Note the following points:

• Oracle does not recommend upgrading an application environment that is currently deployed in production. Instead, you should upgrade your application environment while it is under development or test and execute standard procedures for quality assurance and performance tuning before promoting the upgraded environment to production.

• If you start a WebLogic Server after performing a significant upgrade, then the WebLogic Server, the products layered on top of the WebLogic Server, and/or your applications can make irreversible changes to existing data files and database tables. For example, the default file stores may change such that the older versions will no longer be able to load them. Significant upgrade includes upgrade from the major versions, minor versions, and patch sets, or any specific patch/application that changes the files or database formats.

• If your application is complex, for example, if it includes multiple clustered domains and a large number of deployed applications, you may choose to upgrade the components of the application environment in stages.

• You may consider limiting the number of WebLogic Server versions used in any single application environment to minimize the diversity and cost of systems being administered.

• If you plan to use the RDBMS security store in a WebLogic domain, Oracle recommends that you create a new domain in which the RDBMS security store is configured. If you have an existing domain in which you want to use the RDBMS security store, you should create the new domain, and then migrate your security realm to it. Oracle does not recommend "retrofitting" the RDBMS security store to an existing domain. See Managing the RDBMS Security Store in Administering Security for Oracle WebLogic Server.

It is not necessary for WebLogic Server applications to be undeployed before upgrading the domain. In most cases, WebLogic Server applications can be run without modifications in the new WebLogic Server 14.1.2.0.0 application environment. Note that if you use deprecated or removed APIs in the application, you might encounter warnings or exceptions at run time.

Before you upgrade, you must shut down all servers in the application environment.

Oracle recommends that before upgrading your application environment, you manually back up the components defined in Table 2-1. You should back up the relevant information on all machines in the domain.

Before upgrading your application environment, you must install the Oracle WebLogic Server 14.1.2.0.0 products that you require on each computer in the domain. For more information about installing Oracle WebLogic products, see Installing and Configuring Oracle WebLogic Server and Coherence.

1. Open an MS-DOS command prompt window (on Windows) or a command shell (on UNIX).
2. Add the WebLogic Server classes to the CLASSPATH environment variable and WL_HOME\server\bin to the PATH environment variable, where WL_HOME refers to the top-level installation directory for WebLogic Server.

   You can perform this step by running the WL_HOME\server\bin\setWLSEnv script.

   Note:

   On UNIX operating systems, the setWLSEnv.sh command does not set the environment variables in all command shells. Oracle recommends that you execute this command using the Korn shell or bash shell.