what's the best way to upgrade from WAS 8.5.5 to WAS 9
One answer
Not sure whether it's "best" - you can just follow the WebSphere 9.0 migration guide. Similar discussion here:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41249153/is-there-a-way-to-upgrade-websphere-8-5-5-10-to-version-9
Comments
Thank you Donald. Few more questions...
1) Is there a link somewhere that describes the improvements of WAS 9 over WAS 8.5.5?
2) I noticed when I installed WAS 9, with WAS 855 already existing on the system, it incremented the port number. For example, the new WAS admin console port is now 9044, rather than 9043. Is this port number editable, or is it automatically assigned?
3) If I decided not to run a migration, is my other option to setup WAS manually, import certificates, and install WAR files?
I would suggest to create the profile in WAS 9.0 and then import certificate and install WAR. Use the same ports that you used for your application. That worked for me.
If you look at the highlights of the release note of WAS 9.0, you will see many new features. I won't consider them as improvements in terms of CLM deployments.
https://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?docURL=/common/ssi/rep_ca/4/877/ENUSZP16-0344/index.html&lang=en&request_locale=en
If you do a migration, the port number will be changed to be the same as the source profile. Otherwise, you can manually modify the port numbers to whatever you want - just keep port conflicts in mind.
If you completely disregard the old deployment, of course you will just treat the WAS 9 deployment as a new installation.