I support an existing legacy production webapp (JSP, STRUTS 1.3, Toplink, Oracle, Weblogic). Can you comment on what the possibilities are to migrate to CUBA? Is there a way to retain existing data or import somehow?
Is there a way to create just a web gui using CUBA? Might be faster than using Vaadin by itself.
CUBA is most effective when developing an application from scratch: from model to database schema and UI. We have faced the problem of replacing legacy systems many times, and we always created new applications and custom migration procedures.
A one-time custom migrator can be created as a JMX bean with a single method. This method may work as follows:
Theoretically, it should be possible to run a new CUBA application on the old database without migration, if you make the new model very close to the existing database. It will require adding some service fields (like CREATE_TS, UUID, etc.) to the tables and pre-populating them with default values. But anyway, there will be some restrictions, for example, composite keys are not supported.
We are considering adding the feature of generating “reconciliation” scripts between the data model and the legacy database to CUBA Studio. But at the moment I cannot say when it will be available.
As for using CUBA UI without middleware and database, I would not recommend it, because too much plumbing will be required.
Ok, thanks.
Next question: for a new application, is it easy to refresh the data from one schema to another – let`s say I want to copy production data to a test schema for debugging purposes. Can I use normal Oracle scripts to do that by truncating the test schemas tables and importing from a production DMP?
Of course, you can use any database-specific tools to handle your data. CUBA application model is mapped to a normal relational structure in the database. Tables, primary and foreign keys, sequences - nothing unusual.