Considerations and limitations for IBM Bluemix Server

There are some different considerations between developing, testing, and running HATS web applications on IBM Bluemix Server versus WebSphere Application Server.
  • One HATS web application is supported per .ear file running on IBM Bluemix Server.
  • The HATS administrative console is not supported.
  • Display Terminal is not supported (trace.HOD.DISPLAYTERMINAL).
  • IBM Bluemix does not support the IBM WebSphere JAX-WS Web service runtime using Rational SDP.
  • How to view HATS trace/log files
Log file location in Bluemix server: 
/home/vcap/app/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer/apps/myapp.ear/logs/
Basically, you can observe the path of trace file in the Bluemix server console (HATS studio console) as given below:

SystemOut  O HAT0002
The message log file is:
/home/vcap/app/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer/apps/
      myapp.ear/logs/messages_XXXXXXXX_XX.txt

To view log files using Bluemix website:
  • Log in to Bluemix home page in the browser.
  • Open the HATS application Overview page.
  • Click Files and Logs in the left side menu.
  • Navigate to the path given above, starting from: 
    /app/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer/apps/myapp.ear/logs/
To view log files using Rational SDP Remote Systems View:
  • In the Rational SDP Servers view, double click IBM Bluemix Server.
  • By default, the Overview tab is open. Go to the Applications and Services tab.
  • Select your HATS application under Applications.
  • Click the Remote Systems View link at the bottom-right corner. The Remote Systems View opens for Bluemix Server. Navigate till you see your HATS application.
  • Navigate to the path given above for the log files.
Note:
  1. While adding Bluemix Runtime in Rational SDP, you might see the following error: 
    java.lang.ClassNotFoundException:
Cannot find the specified class com.ibm.websphere.ssl.protocol.SSLSocketFactory
    The workaround for the SSLSocketFactory error message is to look for the com.ibm.ws.ast.st.core.prefs file available in x:\workspace\.metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.core.runtime\.settings, where x:\workspace is the directory of your workspace, and replace isUseIBMSSLSocketFactory=true value with 'false'. Then, restart the workbench.
  2. Exceptions in Bluemix console while deploying HATS ear in Bluemix Server: 
    FFDC1015I: An FFDC Incident has been created:
"com.ibm.wsspi.adaptable.module.UnableToAdaptException:
com.ibm.ws.javaee.ddmodel.DDParser$ParseException:
CWWKC2262E: The server is unable to process the 7 version and the
http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee namespace in the /META-INF/application.xml
deployment descriptor on line 2.
com.ibm.ws.app.manager.ear.internal.EARDeployedAppInfoFactoryImpl 132"
at ffdc_15.09.11_05.03.09.0.lo .....
    By Default HATS applications are created using J2EE 7 version for Bluemix server, so you can set the following environment variable in your HATS Bluemix application in order to include a major subset of the Java EE 7 feature set. You can then add or remove additional features as needed. While deploying HATS application in Bluemix server you can configure this environment variable. 
    name: JBP_CONFIG_LIBERTY
value: app_archive: {features: [ webProfile-7.0, cdi-1.2, jaxrs-2.0, 
jpa-2.1, websocket-1.1, servlet-3.1, jsp-2.3, ejbLite-3.2 ]}
To remote debug HATS business logic or any custom java files using Bluemix server, see https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/718425#whatsnew_95_bluemix_debug.