Speed up EAR file build in MAXIMO 7.5

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After the recent Windows updates, we noticed that EAR file builds are taking longer than usual. After some investigation on various forums, decided to update ANT and JAVA version in MAXIMO.

To check the current version of ANT in MAXIMO folder do following:

• cd \maximo\tools\ant\bin
• ant –version

Apache Ant version 1.8.1 compiled on April 30 2010

To check the current version of JAVA in MAXIMO folder do these steps:

• \maximo\tools\java\jre\bin
• java -version

java version "1.6.0"

Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build pwi3260sr10-20111208_01(SR10))

IBM J9 VM (build 2.4, JRE 1.6.0 IBM J9 2.4 Windows Server 2008 R2 x86-32 jvmwi3260sr10-20111207_96808 (JIT enabled, AOT enabled)

J9VM - 20111207_096808

JIT  - r9_20111107_21307ifx1

GC   - 20110519_AA)

JCL  - 20111104_02

It turns out that ANT package distributed with MAXIMO 7.5 is version 1.8.1 released on 30-th April 2010 and JAVA version in MAXIMO tools directory is as old as well. Hence we decided to update both ANT and JAVA software releases in these folders

• \maximo\tools\ant
• \maximo\tools\java

Simply rename existing folders and copy new version of products in.

You can get latest version 1.9.6 of ANT from

https://www.apache.org/dist/ant/binaries/

https://www.apache.org/dist/ant/binaries/apache-ant-1.9.6-bin.zip

If you are on Web Sphere, you can get latest version of JAVA after applying the latest WebSphere patch 39 or 41 from here:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=180&uid=swg27014463

/support/pages/node/715553

You can simply copy the complete JAVA folder from this location

• \ibm\WebSphere\AppServer\java

In case you use WebLogic, you can get away with the latest JDK 1.6 from Oracle.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javaee/downloads/java-ee-sdk-6u3-jdk-6u29-downloads-523388.html

After applying the update for ANT and JAVA new versions reported are:

               Apache Ant(TM) version 1.9.6 compiled on June 29 2015

and

               java version "1.6.0"

Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build pwa6460sr16fp7ifix-20150930_02(SR16 FP7+IV77565))

IBM J9 VM (build 2.4, JRE 1.6.0 IBM J9 2.4 Windows Server 2008 R2 amd64-64 jvmwa6460sr16fp7-20150701_255724 (JIT enabled, AOT enabled)

J9VM - 20150701_255724

JIT  - r9_20150630_95420

GC   - GA24_Java6_SR16_20150701_1008_B255724)

JCL  - 20150628_01

The result was that EAR files were building quickly again and actual speed was around 20% faster than it used to be before the system updates.

*NOTE:  This blog has been written by an IBM Business Partner, and its content has not been validated by IBM.