[sakai2-tcc] Proposal: Switch to Tomcat 7 for Sakai 2.9

[Berg, Alan]

I like the idea of going straight to Tomcat 7 in conjunction with a full review of the Java version of Sakai. It would be a cheap point in the cycle to get ahead of the maintainability curve.

Alan Berg

Group Education and Research Services
Central Computer Services
University of Amsterdam
________________________________
From: sakai2-tcc-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org [sakai2-tcc-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org] on behalf of Steve Swinsburg [steve.swinsburg at gmail.com]
Sent: 12 April 2011 08:55
To: sakai2-tcc Committee
Subject: Re: [sakai2-tcc] Proposal: Switch to Tomcat 7 for Sakai 2.9

Looks like the JSF tool issue is resolved.

Adding commons-el to shared makes these tools render just fine in Tomcat 7.

cheers,
Steve



On 11/04/2011, at 11:33 AM, Steve Swinsburg wrote:

There is a pretty good summary of the versions here:
http://wiki.apache.org/tomcat/TomcatVersions

Basically, the Tomcat 7 branch is stable and is where all efforts are focused. Enhancements are still going into Tomcat 6 as well and it's been out for quite some time. It's just how they roll.

The layout (shared, common, server etc) between Tomcat 6 and 7 is the same so whatever work that is required to be done there is identical, and in my testing it can be handled purely through Tomcat configuration, which lessens the risk in case we want to pull the plug.

The only issue I see if we decide to just go with Tomcat 6 is that the JSF work might be servlet/JSP/EL spec dependent so might be easier/harder/different for Tomcat 6 and 7 and it might be worth biting the bullet and just doing it for Tomcat 7.

cheers,
Steve



On 11/04/2011, at 10:59 AM, Matthew Jones wrote:

I haven't researched the meaning of the versions (5.5 verses 6 verses 7) yet. Is this anything like other projects where one version is considered more stable than others (at least as far as production is concerned) and others are have more experimental features in them? Usually when something is under active development, it's not necessarily a good thing and taking the version (-1) that's been run for awhile might work out better or at least be easier to justify to an operations team.

The question would this would lead to is (hypothetically) if we ended up seeing that Tomcat 6 was a better choice for 2.9, and Tomcat 7 for 2.10, then would this be twice the work? I know we're going to have to do some library upgrades and significant testing either way. It's probably not worth doubling up on the effort if a case can be made to just go straight to 7.

This is probably the question a lot of schools have with Sakai as well. (i.e.Should I upgrade to 2.7 or just wait until 2.9?)

-Matthew

On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 7:31 PM, Steve Swinsburg <steve.swinsburg at gmail.com<mailto:steve.swinsburg at gmail.com>> wrote:
p.s. If you want to read about the Tomcat 7 trials last week:
https://steveswinsburg.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/sakai-runs-in-tomcat-7/

I just updated it then with a comment about the tools that fail and their stacktraces.

cheers,
Steve

On 11/04/2011, at 9:30 AM, Steve Swinsburg wrote:

> Hi,
>
> After some successful trials last week and discussions with other active developers in the Sakai community, I'd like to propose that we starting thinking about switching to Tomcat 7 in time for Sakai 2.9.
>
> This effectively means we make the switch now so we can iron out any bugs. I have confirmed that some JSF based tools do not startup, and the stacktraces are rather cryptic. Someone that knows something about JSF will need to take a look. Samigo also fails but its stacktrace is more promising which hopefully means it can be resolved. This could be the first to be fixed so we know where the issue is with the others, perhaps.
>
> But with enough time these should be able to be resolved. No other changes should be necessary so we could back this change out at some predetermined date in the future if these issues cannot be resolved in time.
>
> What are your thoughts?
>
> By the way, the same configuration changes and issues are in Tomcat 6 as well so we might as well skip that version and focus our efforts where the Tomcat developers have their efforts focused as well, ie TC7.
>
>
> cheers,
> Steve
>

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