Simplifier Upgrade from 6.5 / 7.0 / 7 EHP 1 to 8

This is a generic upgrade guide. If you use docker compose, please use the specific upgrade guide found here.

If you do not use docker compose, and you neither use AWS ECS nor any Kubernetes based solution, you should consider migrating your setup to docker compose. For that, first upgrade your system to Simplifier 8 following this guide, and then analyze the docker compose description found here to plan the migration path of your setup. If you need help, please ask your Simplifier Customer Success Manager for possibilities.

What has changed in Simplifier 7 EHP 1?

There are two changes which require infrastructure changes:

1. Two plugins, Key Value Store and JSON Store, changed their backend
2. The new feature “Simplifier Launchpad” is distributed as a separate container image

What has changed in Simplifier 8?

From Infrastructure perspective, the following things changed:

1. The main feature, the new workflow enginge, is distributed as two separate container images. Both images need to be run on each Simplifier environment.
2. The data path of the launchpad container changed (only relevant if you upgrade from 7 EHP 1)

Step 1 – Preperations

Shut down Simplifier. Leave your database server running.

For this guide, ${SIMPLIFIER_DATA_DIR} refers to the path on the host system, where Simplifier data is stored. This is the same path that you mount to /opt/simplifier/data in your docker configuration.

If you are already running 7.1: ${LAUNCHPAD_DATA_DIR} referst to the path on the host system, where launchpad data is stored. In your 7.1 setup, you mounted it to /home/launchpad or /home/launchpad/storage

If you do not remember these paths, use this command to list all containers and their mounted volumes:

for contId in `docker ps -q`; do echo "Container Name: "   `docker ps -f "id=$contId" | awk '{print $NF}' | grep -v NAMES`; echo "Container Volume: " `docker inspect -f '{{.Config.Volumes}}' $contId`; docker inspect -f '{{ json .Mounts }}' $contId  | jq '.[]';   printf "\n"; done

Remember the volume paths to adjust it before you upgrade to major version.

Step 2 – Setup changes for plugin changes (only if you are upgrading from 6.5/7.0)

These changes are covered in detail here.

Both plugins need a database. These databases have to be created and proper access rights must be given to the db user who will access them. The easiest setup is to use the same database server and user as you use for the main Simplifier database. Here a short description on how to do these changes. For more details or a more specific setup, please refer to the dedicated documentation here.

Backup database files

Make a copy of

${SIMPLIFIER_DATA_DIR}/plugins/jsonStore/jsonStore 
${SIMPLIFIER_DATA_DIR}/plugins/keyValueStore/kvstore

Create databases and grant access rights

For MySQL, run this in your Simplifier Database Server. ${DB_NAME} refers to the database name you configured for your main Simplifier database. You are already using this value for the MYSQL_DB environment variable or in your config.include setup.

CREATE DATABASE ${DB_NAME}_keyvalue; 
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `${DB_NAME}_keyvalue`.* TO `simplifier`@`%`; 
CREATE DATABASE ${DB_NAME}_jsonstore; 
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `${DB_NAME}_jsonstore`.* TO `simplifier`@`%`; 
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Step 3 – Setup changes for new Container

Create permanent storage location for Launchpad (only if you upgrade from 6.5 / 7.0)

Create a folder called launchpad in a place outside ${SIMPLIFIER_DATA_DIR}.

Change owner and group of this folder to 1000:1000.

Add this folder to your backup.

Create permanent storage location for Workflows (all upgrade paths)

create two folders: workflowRuntime and workflowDesigntime in a place outside ${SIMPLIFIER_DATA_DIR}.

Change owner and group of these folders to 1000:1000.

Add these folders to your backup.

Step 4 – Reverse Proxy changes (upgrade from 6.5 / 7.0 only)

Simplifier now provides a Launchpad, which should be the default entry point. Simplifier itself is already configured that way. If you configured any redirects in your reverse proxy configuration for the default route /, e.g. an auto redirect to /UserInterface, you need to remove that rule.

Step 5 – Prepare container

To run Simplifier 8, you need the following components:

• a database server
• a reverse proxy
• Simplifier runtime container
• Simplifier launchpad container
• Simplifier workflow runtime container
• Simplifier workflow designtime container

Requirements for database server and reverse proxy didn’t change. They are not covered in this guide but expected to be configured properly to support Simplifier 6.5 / 7.0.

Prepare a configuration with the data explained in the following two sections. The kind of configuration depends on your environment. In a plain docker environment, consider to write the correct docker run commands in a short shell script, or, better, switch to docker compose and idealy use our prepared docker compose setup found here.

Simplifier

The container image is named:

simplifierag/simplifier:8.0

It needs the following environment variables:

VIRTUAL_HOST	FQDN Simplifier will be accessible under via HTTP
DB	mysql (for Oracle support, contact Customer Success)
MYSQL_HOST	Hostname of your Database server
MYSQL_PORT	3306 for MySQL default
MYSQL_USER	Database user name
MYSQL_PASSWORD	Database users password
MYSQL_DB	(Base) Name for the Simplifier Database
PLUGINLIST	List of activated plugins. Default: keyValueStorePlugin,pdfPlugin,captcha,contentRepoPlugin,jsonStore
SECOND_SEED	Hostname of launchpad container in the docker network
MODULE_HOST	Hostname of Simplifier container in the docker network
SIMPLIFIER_HOST	Hostname of Simplifier container in the docker network

Additionally, a storage location needs to be mounted. The path inside the container is /opt/simplifier/data.

Simplifier Launchpad

The container image is named:

simplifierag/launchpad:8.0

It needs the following environment variables:

SIMPLIFIER_HOST	Hostname of Simplifier container in the docker network
SECOND_SEED	Hostname of launchpad container in the docker network
MODULE_HOST	Hostname of launchpad container in the docker network

Additionally, a storage location needs to be mounted. The path inside the container is /home/launchpad/data.

Workflow Designtime

The container image is named:

simplifierag/workflow-designtime:8.0

It needs the following environment variables:

DB_USER	Database User Name
DB_PASS	Password for Database User
DB_DATABASE	Database Name / MySQL Schema
DB_HOST	Host Name of MySQL Database Server
DB_PORT	Port where Database Server listens to
SIMPLIFIER_HOST	Hostname of Simplifier container in the docker network
SECOND_SEED	Hostname of launchpad container in the docker network
MODULE_HOST	Hostname of Workflow Designtime container in the docker network

Additionally, a storage location needs to be mounted. The path inside the container is /home/workflowDesigntime/data.

Workflow Runtime

The container image is named:

simplifierag/workflow-runtime:8.0

It needs the following environment variables:

DB_USER	Database User Name
DB_PASS	Password for Database User
DB_DATABASE	Database Name / MySQL Schema
DB_HOST	Host Name of MySQL Database Server
DB_PORT	Port where Database Server listens to
SIMPLIFIER_HOST	Hostname of Simplifier container in the docker network
SECOND_SEED	Hostname of launchpad container in the docker network
MODULE_HOST	Hostname of Workflow Runtime container in the docker network
TZ	Timezone
SIMPLIFIER_LAUNCHPAD_BASE_URL	FQDN Simplifier will be accessible under via HTTP with protocoll prefix, e.g. https://simplifier.mycompany.com

The following environment variables are optional. Please refere to this documentation for there meaning and their default values.

ARCHIVE_ENABLED

ARCHIVE_INTERVAL

ARCHIVE_MAX_AGE_COMPLETED

ARCHIVE_TIME

Additionally, a storage location needs to be mounted. The path inside the container is /home/workflow-runtime/data.

Step 6 – Run Simplifier

If the database server is not running, start it as the first container in the boot sequence.

In the step before, you prepared a configuration which sets all environment variables and the volume mounts. When the database server is running, start the Simplifier container followed by the Launchpad container, the workflow runtime container and the workflow designtime container with your configuration. If the reverse proxy is not yet running, start it as well.

Check the logs for all container.

Step 7 – Update Standard Content

Download the current standard content here and import it (Documentation).