1. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Experiences upgrading uPortal Panelists: Katya Sadovsky (UC Irvine) Adam Rybicki (Unicon) Susan Bramhall (Yale) Steve Barrett (Cornell) Darren Kraker (CalPoly) Drew Wills (Unicon) Faizan Ahmed (Rutgers) With contributions from: Sarah Arnott (Memorial University of Newfoundland)

2. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Panel objective To give the audience an opportunity to compare uPortal upgrade approaches and experiences at several institutions.

3. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Questions for the panelists Which versions of uPortal did you upgrade from and to? Which Layout Management approach did you select? How did you migrate existing user accounts layouts? How did you migrate group definitions? How did you migrate custom channels? How did you migrate framework code customizations? Is it desired to convert PersonDirs.xml to personDirectory.xml? 2.5.2 now includes CAS client. Is this the time to implement CAS? Many institutions want to go to DLM. However, its personalization UI represents a step backward from integrated modes/ALM. How do we: "sell" this to the users? skin this "old style" personalization UI? What was your marketing strategy in general when to came to the upgrade? Finally, how did you manage the upgrade project

4. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 UC Irvine Upgraded from v. 2.1.5 to v.2.5.2 Converted from SLM to DLM Manually converted layouts for frequent/power users Template layouts were discarded in favor of DLM Preserved: bookmarks, skin preferences Group management: Used local and JitLDAP group stores before upgrading Continued to use the same group implementations and definitions

5. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 UC Irvine Custom channel migration Channel db data: created a channel id map table and used SQL scripts to move data to the new database Channel sources: included with source code migration Framework code customizations: Reviewed the list of customizations and determined that some have been implemented as part of the framework Manually re-applied customizations since most of them needed to be re-factored Person directory implementation: Kept the “old” PersonDirs.xml-based implementation (will switch to personDirectory.xml in the future)

6. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 UC Irvine Authentication: using a homegrown campus authentication system Personalization UI Since we moved from SLM to DLM, our users didn’t see much of a change in the Personalization UI Marketing the upgrade: Sent out 3 emails to registered users: 1st – to all the registered users 2nd and 3rd – to those users who have logged in the past 2 months Created an info page (using one of our page templates) that explained the changes Advertised in the ‘Portal News’ channel and uci.brief (electronic news mailer)

7. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 UC Irvine Managing the upgrade project: task list

8. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 MUN Upgrading from 2-3-patches to 2-5-patches (planned for late August) We will be converting from ALM to DLM We're not migrating our existing user's layouts. Not enough users are using the personalization features. In fact, we're eliminating many personalization options and modifying our UI with a new custom theme. Our new UI will have navigation more similar to a traditional web site with only one channel rendered at a time. The menus will be personalisable. We will be maintaining personalized data from channels where applicable.

9. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 MUN Group management: We currently use PAGs and will continue to do so. No upgrade procedure necessary. Custom channel migration For DB data: we created a table to maintain a mapping of old portal (2.3.x) user ids and unique identifiers (our CAS login username). Framework code customizations: Manually. And some customizations were no longer necessary.

10. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 MUN Person directory implementation: Will keep the “old” PersonDirs.xml-based implementation Authentication: We've used CAS since our initial launch in April 2003. Personalization UI Since we've created a new theme for DLM and removed some of the personalization stuff, it's not an issue for us.

11. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 MUN Marketing the upgrade: Since we will be drastically enhancing our UI, there will be a huge marketing campaign around the new, improved my.mun.ca. Memorial is also going through an institution-wide branding inititiative (new institutional logo, colour scheme, etc.) launched next month - very timely for our upgrade in August.

12. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories Upgraded from v. 2.1.5 to v.2.5.2 Created an inventory of channels for porting Used a tool to export channel definitions in pubchan XML format The only framework modifications had to do with authentication, but those were discarded and replaced with CAS Port the custom stats recorder to 2.5.2 Converted from SLM to DLM All layouts were discarded, but few users personalized them Group management: Switched from LDAP to PAGS Continued to use the same group implementations and definitions

13. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories Custom channel migration No custom channels to migrate Custom content was presented using GenericXSLT and CWebProxy, and the upgrade only required re-testing Bookmarks Person directory implementation: Kept the “legacy” personDirs.xml-based implementation User Interface Implemented the VT theme by porting it from 2.4.2 to 2.5.2 This theme could have forced ALM over DLM

14. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories Authentication Implemented CAS 3.0.4 by using the same LDAP to keep the same credentials Extended CAS 3.0.4 to allow passing service tickets via HTTP POST Miscellaneous CVS / build system to assure that any instance (dev, QA, Prod) could be rebuilt from CVS

15. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Rutgers University Upgraded from v. 2.4.2 to v.2.5.2 Stayed with SLM This was for historical reasons Looking into migrating to DLM Investigating tools to help in such a migration

16. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Rutgers University Managing the upgrade JAXP 1.2 to JAXP 1.3 JDK 1.4.x to JDK 1.5 uP 2.4.4+ to uP 2.5.2+ SLM to DLM (future)

17. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Yale University Upgraded from v. 2.3.1 to v.2.5.1 Converted from SLM to DLM Template layouts were discarded in favor of DLM Special effects for users with customized layouts Limited success Preserved: all channels Group management: Used local and PAGS group stores before upgrading Continued to use the same group implementations and definitions plus

18. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Yale University Custom channel migration No changes – modified database in place Framework code customizations: Reviewed the list of customizations (some have been implemented as part of the framework = motivation to QA mods and contribute back!) Manually re-applied customizations: most of them needed to be re-factored and/or applied to different classes Person directory implementation: Switched to new PersonDirectory.xml to enable cached attributes for speedier logon processing.

19. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Yale University Authentication: CAS was used for both versions Personalization UI Since we moved from SLM to DLM, our users didn’t see much of a change in the Personalization UI We modified Preferences channel to show user customized content in a different color Marketing the upgrade: Marketing? Put announcement in Portal.

20. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Yale University Managing the upgrade project: I was the only person on the project My notes: http://tp.its.yale.edu/confluence/display/YIP/Converting+ to+DLM

21. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Cornell University Upgraded from 2.3.x to 2.4.x Converted from SLM to ALM (MUN Enhanced) Group management We have a central group mechanism Custom channel migration Defined them in the new instance*

22. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Cornell University Framework code customizations Many of our customizations were incorporated into the 2.4.x release There are only a few Cornell specific modifications Person directory implementation We use PersonDirs.xml w/both Directory and JDBC Directory definitions Authentication/CAS: We have had central authentication for much more than a decade now I recommend that some type of central authentication mechanism be employed soon

23. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Cornell University Marketing strategy: We made an instance of the new version available in parallel Ran in parallel during the Spring semester Current (2.3.x) version contained a link in the header to the new version Provided a “migration” channel in the new version to allow address and bookmark information to be populated on demand from the 2.3 instance into the 2.4 instance.

24. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Cornell University Managing the upgrade project: Our upgrade project was handled like the installation of a new product offering The only visible presence of a previous version came from the migration channel Removed the migration channel during Winter break of the following year

25. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Cal Poly ( San Luis Obispo ) Upgraded from v. 2.1.5 to v.2.5.1 (+patches) Converted from SLM to DLM All layouts were reset back to ‘default’ Content driven by DLM based on roles in LDAP Preserved: bookmarks, force university skin Group management: Previously used uPortal local Group Store exclusively Migrated any groups that were not in LDAP Utilized LDAP group structure with PAGS for most group relationships

26. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Cal Poly ( San Luis Obispo ) Custom channel migration Exported then republished using new channel publishing tools that utilize channel fname Framework code customizations: Reviewed the list of customizations (some have been implemented as part of the framework) Minimized customizations, re-factoring where possible Person directory implementation: Used new personDirectory.xml implementation for greater flexibility

27. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006 Cal Poly ( San Luis Obispo ) Authentication: We’ve been using CAS since 1.X version of the portal Personalization UI Previously used SLM Used the upgrade as an opportunity to update the look and feel Marketing the upgrade: PeopleSoft SA implementation, content management, ease users through PeopleSoft SA migration Leverage the power of DLM i.e. delivering new content to a customized layout Emailed users that had logged in within the last 3 months informing them any layout customizations would be lost after upgrade

28. JA-SIG Summer Conference, 2006