4 Replies Latest reply on Mar 11, 2014 8:10 AM by manarh

    Migration Seam 2.3.1 / JBoss 7.1.1 -> WildFly 8 / Weld / DeltaSpike / ... Practicable, at this time?

    flopsi

      Hello everybody,

      we have a Seam 2.3.1 application running on JBoss AS 7.1.1 using the following features and components:

       

      In-/Outjection (of course)

      Long-Running Conversations (also nested)

      Quartz 1.6.5 (for asynch. mail processing)

      Drools 5.3.3 (for security rules)

      JSF 2 / RichFaces 4.2.2 / PrimeFaces 3.4.2

      Internationalization

      XHTML Mail Templates

      JPA 2 / Hibernate ORM 4.1.5

      Hibernate Search 4.1.0

      Hibernate Validator 4.2.0

      POI 3.7 / iText 2.1.2 (for PDF generation)

       

      We have the idea of migrating to WildFly 8 using CDI / DeltaSpike (and PicketLink / CDI-Mail, if necessary), but we cannot really judge the state of DeltaSpike and therefore the effort doing this...

      So our questions are:

       

      -Is it an eligible plan for us to migrate at all, or will there be too many difficulties, especially in transforming our conversational components due to different behaviour of conversations?

      -Will there be glue code that has to be written manually that was incorporated in Seam before, and how much of it?

      -Will there maybe be a migration guide in the near future (http://deltaspike.apache.org/migration-guide.html#jboss-seam2-to-apache-deltaspike)?

      -Is there a danger of DeltaSpike being reorganized into other projects in the near future, like it happened to Seam3?

      -What happened to CDI-Mail (the link on seamframework.org is broken)?

       

      Sorry for all these questions, but we just don't want to end in a dead-end street and therefore are interested in experience with this.

      I know this one

      http://javalabor.blogspot.de/2011/08/our-seam-2-to-jee-6-replacement-list.html

      but it's a bit old and i'm sure things have happened since then...

       

      Thanks a lot, best regards

      Flo

        • 1. Re: Migration Seam 2.3.1 / JBoss 7.1.1 -> WildFly 8 / Weld / DeltaSpike / ... Practicable, at this time?
          boky8

          Hi Florian,

           

          I have tried to go down that path and I can tell you that the road is long and painful. I did have a bit of a head start (using Seam 3.0 -> Deltaspike) but still haven't been able to resolve all the issues.

           

          The documentation for DeltaSpike is lacking and what is there is usually outdated. Your best bet is to join the guys on IRC and try to get the feedback directly from the developers. What I have learned so far:

          • some things have moved to DeltaSpike, so updating usually just means changing class names
          • some things have been renamed, so you will need to fix your code (e.g. getUser() is now getAgent())
          • some things have moved to PicketLink (authorization part of the Seam), be prepared to include it in your code and learn it
          • some things have gone to CDI
          • for some things there are no good replacements and you will need to code your own (I think that Seam Mail falls under this category)

           

          I'd be happy to help you out with anything I have learned when you come across concrete problems. I think the community will be grateful if you do post your findings to this tread.

           

          Cheers,

          Bojan

          1 of 1 people found this helpful
          • 2. Re: Migration Seam 2.3.1 / JBoss 7.1.1 -> WildFly 8 / Weld / DeltaSpike / ... Practicable, at this time?
            flopsi

            Hey Bojan,

            first thanks for the fast answer... I think i will create a branch and give it a try, maybe next month...

             

            Having read the (indeed rare) DeltaSpike documentation it seems to me that i don't really have to worry about In-/Outjection, Scheduling, Internationalization, JPA/Hibernate and Validation, but maybe about Scopes, Drools, Mail and PDF. Although I think PDF and XHTML Mail processing can be handled relatively independent and therefore won't be THAT kind of a problem. But the deeper integration of conversations (especially nested long-running) and rule-based security into Seam lets me at least think about Scopes behaviour and Drools usage...

            I'll keep you up to date if i really should try it and i really appreciate your offer to help!

             

            Thanks a lot, best regards

            Flo

            • 3. Re: Migration Seam 2.3.1 / JBoss 7.1.1 -> WildFly 8 / Weld / DeltaSpike / ... Practicable, at this time?
              manarh

              Florian,

              I would add something to your list of needed working parts:

              The only module/integration which could need more work in comparison to Seam 2 is PDF/XLS/reporting part.

              • 4. Re: Migration Seam 2.3.1 / JBoss 7.1.1 -> WildFly 8 / Weld / DeltaSpike / ... Practicable, at this time?
                manarh

                Btw some scenarios for migrations could be seen at JBoss Developer pages -  Migrating to Java EE 6