Continue reading »]]> Recently ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) approved the introduction of the complete Internet domain names in non-latin specific languages (Non-latin characters in domain names)

Extract from one of the Press release:

“Up to now, domain names had to use the 26 Latin letters in the English alphabet as well as 10 numerals and the hyphen.Technical efforts have enabled display of parts of Internet addresses in other scripts, but the two-letter suffixes had to be made up of those 37 characters.The approval for non-Latin characters applies for now only to domain names connected with the two-letter country codes, like .ru for Russia and .cn for China.Languages that could become available in 2010 for Internet-site names include Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Hindi and Korean.he so-called generic top-level-domain suffixes, like .com, .net and .gov, will remain Latin-characters-only for now.”

Tha above announcement could bring in number of changes in current industry. Here are few of them:

• Web Content Managment: With new non-latin domains getting registered everyday, WCM demand will increase than ever before with the focus on multilingual support. In my experience with WCM, I have not come across many implementations that support multilingual. So, its going to be a challenge for both the product vedors as well as System Integrators. It is important to test the current implementations for non-latin languages and becoming a Must Have feature for any implementations going forward. The same will hold good for e-commerce .
• Translators: The market for translators will increase and will become more prominent. The content will start becoming more localized to regions and translators will come to rescue to retrieve any such localized information to outside world. And there is a good chance that translators becoming one of the offerings of WCM products.
• Search: Local/regional seach will start occupying the search space. This might lead to emergence of lot of localized search engines and will provide stiff challenge to some of the bigger players today in the industry
• Social Networking: With Web 2.0 and social networking the key in todays world, I can imagine local facebook, twitter etc. versions emerging in the market. Localized social search is other area to watch out.
• Migration tools: Emergence of tools which could help to migrate your existing site to localized version

The announcement will:

• Bring in new business opportunities and whole new dimension for non-latin countries
• Internet users will increase exponentially
• Internet will start becoming the preferred source of communication for non-latin countries through localized email and social networking sites
• System Integrators local market in non-latin countires will increase many folds
• Add more challenge to the big brands as they will be pressured to register their current domain names in any number of non-Latin-script languages to prevent fake sites
• Another potential issue highlighted is that some characters in non-Latin scripts appear similar to those of Latin-alphabet characters. So, if we substitutea non-Latin character for the similar Latin character, it will createa unique URL — and the potential for site-spoofing

What are your thoughts about it?

Continue reading »]]> Scenario: WWCM migration from V6.0.1.3 to WWCM 6.1.0.2.  We have a current install of WWCM 6.0.1.3 where all the content reside and is available to end users. We have setup WWCM 6.1.0.2 and the scenario is to migrate just WCM content across from older to newer version.Here is a quick guide to the steps we followed:

• Setup desktop implementation of WWCM and Portal (6.0.1.3), using DB2 and connecting to shared LDAP. Lets refer this setup as “WS6013”
• Make sure that JCR schema is separated as a database instance
• Setup syndication from source (Environment to pick content from) to WS6013
• In parallel, setup desktop implementation of WWCM and Portal (6.1.0.2) on SAME MACHINE, using DB2 and connecting to shared LDAP. Lets refer this setup as “WS6102” 

• Once syndication is completed on WS6013, apply the following iFixes: 
  • PK57970
  • PK60183
  • PK62044
  • PK63553
  • PK64160
  • PK64247
  • PK64833
• On WS6102, apply the following iFixes: 
  • 6.1.0.2-WCM-PK85196
  • Run iFix Post install tasks
    § Run {WAS_PROFILE_ROOT}/ConfigEngine.bat remove-wcm-migration -DPortalAdminPwd=<password> -DWasPassword=<password>
    § Run {WAS_PROFILE_ROOT}/ConfigEngine.bat configure-wcm-migration -DPortalAdminPwd=<password> -DWasPassword=<password>
    § Run {WAS_PROFILE_ROOT}/ConfigEngine.bat update-wcm -DPortalAdminPwd=<password> -DWasPassword==<password>
• Disable JCR text search indexing on WS6102 at location <wp_profile_root>/PortalServer/jcr/lib/com/ibm/icm/icm.properties
• Remove all subscribers & Syndicators, and disable searches on the WS6013
• Run portal-pre-upgrade task to backup WS6013 setup
  o Run from WS6102: WPmigrate.bat portal-pre-upgrade -DbackupDirectory=<Backup Directory> -DcurrentPortalDirectory=<WS6013 Portal Directory> -DcurrentPortalAdminId=<WS6013 Portal Admin Id> -DcurrentPortalAdminPwd=<WS6013 Portal Admin Password> -DbPassword==<WS6102 Database password> -DSkipAiMigration=true
• Take backup of JCR database on WS6013
• Copy WS6013 JCR database to WS6102
  o db2 “restore database JCRDB from <backup-location> taken at <timestamp>”
• Connect WS6102 to new database by running the following commands:
  o Run {WAS_PROFILE_ROOT}/ConfigEngine.bat validate-database-driver -DTransferDomainList=jcr -DPortalAdminPwd=<WS6102 Portal password> -DWasPassword=<WS6102 WAS password>
  o Run {WAS_PROFILE_ROOT}/Run {WAS_PROFILE_ROOT}/ConfigEngine.bat validate-database-connection -DTransferDomainList=jcr -DPortalAdminPwd==<WS6102 Portal password> -DWasPassword=<WS6102 WAS password>
  o Run {WAS_PROFILE_ROOT}/ConfigEngine.bat connect-database-jcr-migration -DPortalAdminPwd==<WS6102 Portal password> -DWasPassword=<WS6102 WAS password>
  o Run {WAS_PROFILE_ROOT}/ConfigEngine.bat create-wcm-persistence-tables -DPortalAdminPwd==<WS6102 Portal password> -DWasPassword=<WS6102 WAS password>
• Run task to update Node Type
  o WPmigrate.bat update-nodetypes -DPreviousPortalVersion=6013 -Dinitial.wcm.nodetype.version=2 -DbackupDirectory=<WS6013 backup directory>
• Run database tasks to re-org information of JCR database
• Run a script on WS6102 to bring it up to 6.1 level
  o Windows: WPmigrate.bat update-wcm-data -DWasUserId=username -DWasPassword=password -DbackupDirectory=directory
• Recreate subscribers and syndicators on the 6.1 server, and rebuild search indexes, enable search

All the best !!

Continue reading »]]> Migration projects are always challenging due to their uniqueness and my blog migration was no different. To add to the complexity was the change in domain from pcmspace.com to shishank.info. Here are the steps which needs to be  followed:

1. Installed WordPress v 2.1 which I was using on pcmspace.com
2. Migrated pcmspace Database making minor changes to the domain/user details
3. Update install path to map domain path
4. Check point 1: Unit test the migration
5. Upgrade WordPress to V 2.8.2
6. Run migration tasks
7. Check point 2: Unit test the migration again

Its important to come up with the right migration strategy else you can invest lots of time. For example: in migrating my above blog, I started with installing the latest version of WordPress and tried all sorts of options – just moving content and not database schema, running sqls etc. But in the end, it was too much of work and it doesn’t provide the feeling of doing right.

I have not fully finished the migration, as I need to point my old domain to new. Also changes to my install path means, I need to play around with some of the urls that are not working on the website. I hope I can complete that fast and can be back in blogging  world