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Old Clarify Applications On Windows 2008

Long-time ClarifyCRM users begin to face a problem: how to migrate their ClarifyCRM suite to modern, 64-bit operating system. They have no intentions and needs to upgrade Clarify itself, but their corporate policies force them to decommission Windows NT/2000 servers.


Dovetail Software took on the task to verify whether the following software suite would install and work on 64-bit version of MS Windows Server 2008 and MS SQL 2008:



  • Clarify Classic Applications 11.1

  • Clarify Rule Manager 11.1

  • CBO 10.1.1.0

  • JDK 1.2

  • java 1.4.0_01

  • Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.0_01-b03)

  • BEA WebLogic Server 5.1 SP9

  • Clarify eSupport 10.1

  • Fulcrum/Hummingbird FTS 5.0

An Attempt at 64-bit


After installing MS SQL 2008, a Clarify database was backed-up on Windows 2000 server and restored on the new 2008 one without problems – no surprise here.


There have been numerous problems, however, with Clarify installers. They are all 16-bit applications and would not run on MS Windows Server 2008 (64-bit) Enterprise Edition SP2 at all, even in compatibility mode. We tried to work around these problems:



  • copied Clarify Client, UIEditor, CBEX from a 32-bit system – they can be started, connect to the database, but either produce errors or misbehave: i.e. UIEditor could not recognize global modules. Running them in compatibility mode of WinNT SP5 corrected this problem.

  • copied Rule Manager, created Windows Service manually, transferred appropriate registry entries – the service would not start.

At this point it has been decided that we cannot safely recommend installing and running this set of applications on a 64-bit Windows OS, this path was abandoned.


An Attempt at 32-bit


The next step was to use 32-bit version of Windows Server 2008 and MS SQL 2008.


The database was restored without problems.


All the installers worked, compatibility mode of WinNT SP5 was used.


MS Outloook 2010 was installed, outlook client profile was created and used for Rule Manager. Rule Manager service starts successfully and connects to the database.


The following problems surfaced but were resolved:


$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$     License Exception     $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Loaded License : C:/weblogic/license/WebLogicLicense.xml

However Unable to start because :

No License found for WebLogic

As well as the fact that: No License found for Tengah

As well as the fact that: No License found for WebLogic/JDBC

As well as the fact that: No License found for Tengah/JDBC

As well as the fact that: No License found for jdbcKona/T3

WebLogic Server terminated with an abnormal condition of 1
Had to download perpetual licenses from http://www.oracle.com/us/support/licensecodes/bea/index.html and merge with Clarify-specific licenses.


  • WebLogic Server would not start, error message: “Problem with X509 certificate”. Had to modify C:weblogicweblogic.properties file to disable SSL

  • WebLogic Server would not start, error message: “java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: weblogic.boot.ServerClassLoader: method getClassLoadNotify()Lweblogic/boot/ClassLoadNotify; not found”. Had to modify start command to include all required libraries: 
java.exe -ms64m -mx64m -classpath c:weblogiclibweblogic510sp9boot.jar;c:javalibclasses.zip;c:weblogicclassesboot;c:weblogicevalcloudscapelibcloudscape.jar -Dweblogic.class.path=c:weblogiclibweblogic510sp9.jar;c:weblogicclasses;c:weblogiclicense;c:weblogiclibweblogicaux.jar;c:weblogicmyserverserverclasses  -Dweblogic.system.discardOutAndErr=true -Djava.security.manager -Djava.security.policy=C:weblogicweblogic.policy -Dweblogic.system.name=myserver -Dweblogic.system.home=C:weblogic -Dweblogic.cluster.enable=false -Dweblogic.cluster.name=mycluster -Dweblogic.system.listenPort=7001 -Dweblogic.system.SSLListenPort=7002 -Dweblogic.cluster.multicastAddress=237.0.0.1 weblogic.Server
All other installations and configurations were performed per documentation and without problems, eSupport and FTS worked as expected.

Conclusion



  • Only the database server worked in 64-bit environment.

  • Clarify Client, UIEditor, CBEX worked on both 32 and 64 bit systems if copied from a 32-bit, pre-2008 installations. This is a common problem for users’ workstations which migrate to 64-bit Windows much sooner than the servers. If a workstation is upgraded to Windows 7 64-bit, these applications would work if copied over from a 32-bit, pre-2008 installation. In case there are problems, i.e. UIEditor would not allow to edit forms or Clarify Client would not allow to apply license, set compatibility mode to WinNT SP5.

  • Rule Manager and WebLogic install only on 32-bit OS.

  • The entire suite was fully functional on MS Windows Server 2008 (32-bit) Enterprise Edition SP 2.