Possible upgrade Path from JBoss 4.2.1 to Wildfly 9?

[barrybevel]

Hi,

  We have an large mission critical application developed using JBoss technologies which we are now hoping to upgrade.

Our current stack is:

JBoss 4.2.1

Seam 2.1.1

RichFaces 3.3.2.SR1

JBoss ESB

JBoss Cache

One possible destination stack would be:

WildFly 9

CDI

RichFaces 4.5

SwitchYard

InfiniSpan

We want to be able to run IE11 without Enterprise mode so that means RichFaces 4.5 (or 4.3 )

RichFaces 4.5 means upgrading to JSF 2.

JSF 2 means upgrading the JBoss Server.

Upgrading JBoss Server means upgrading JBoss ESB and JBoss Cache and lots of various API upgrades.

Seam 2.1 won't work with JSF 2 so we need to upgrade that, but it's dead so were thinking JEE CDI is the way to go.

We have a large amount of code related to JBoss ESB, so if we didn't have to rewrite / upgrade to SwitchYard it would be great.

Is there any way to stage this upgrade rather than trying to do it all at once which seems very difficult and risky?

Plan B is drop RichFaces/JSF and rewrite the front-end using client side technologies and wrap our existing services in JSON/REST.

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks.

[ctomc]

This is a huge question on what to migrate and how.

If you just remove jboss esb from equation it would be quite simple migration path, which would still require some work but it is well known path that many have already done.

I would recommend you doing this:

JBoss 4.2.1 --> WildFly 10 (about to be released)

Seam 2.1.1 --> Seam 2.3.0.GA which does work with JSF 2

RichFaces 3.3.2.SR1 --> as you said migrate to latest richfaces 4.x

JBoss ESB --> difficult question, best to create new forum post over at SwitchYard forums, and ask how to do migration of just that.

JBoss Cache --> as you said Infinispan, which is part of WildFly

First migrate everything but ESB, then look how to migrate ESB as well.

[barrybevel]

Thanks very much Tomaz for quick reply, I'll post a question on SwitchYard forums

[barrybevel]

After doing some research it looks like Seam is no longer being developed and the latest version of RichFaces 4.5.x is no longer compatible with Seam.

"However since Seam is no longer being developed (and no part of RichFaces depends on it) we do not have to actively check if it is still working. If you find a problem then by all means file a JIRA issue, I can take a look at it and try to fix it but for us there is no requirement to maintain the compatibility."

https://developer.jboss.org/message/936866?et=watches.email.thread#936866

Plus RichFaces will now "pursue a path of stability with our JSF approach, rather than a path of innovation".

http://www.bleathem.ca/blog/2014/07/richfaces-will-pursue-stability-over-innovation.html

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28486465/whats-the-most-recent-richfaces-version-supported-by-the-last-release-of-jbo…

I'm starting to think there's not much point upgrading to RichFaces 4.3 and Seam 2.3 it looks like a dead end.