4 steps for migrating to Red Hat EAP 8 with confidence

In July 2025, Red Hat® JBoss® Enterprise Application Platform 7 (JBoss EAP 7) full support will come to an end. That means EAP 7 customers will be required to either migrate to EAP 8 in order to maintain compliance or purchase Extended Lifecycle Support (ELS). This checklist offers a step-by-step guide with tips for a smooth transition (including how to make changes to package namespaces and security).

Before you start the migration to EAP 8, it is crucial to conduct an assessment of your application portfolio, technical dependencies, and your organization’s readiness. During this part of the migration process, we recommend that you:

• Identify key stakeholders, gauge their willingness to change, and make sure the teams that need to be involved are aligned with each other.
• Take inventory of which EAP versions need to be upgraded, what Java Development Kit (JDK) versions are in place, and how libraries and shared dependencies may complicate the process.
• Consider using the Red Hat migration toolkit for applications, which can help you streamline the migration process by analyzing, scoping, and automating parts of the process.
• Assess your internal resources to see if consultation services might be required to help complete migration in a timely manner. Red Hat Consulting can offer migration-specific support.
• Identify potential roadblocks ahead of time, such as code updates to legacy systems, loss of institutional knowledge, and architectural changes.

A strong strategy is critical for organizations looking to reduce risk, control costs, and facilitate a smooth transition while migrating to EAP 8. You can choose between a direct upgrade or a phased approach. Each has unique advantages.

• With a direct approach, you will be migrating directly to EAP 8 with JDK 17 or 21. This approach is more efficient and cost-effective, but comes with a greater potential for error due to the complexity of the operation and the lack of testing.
• A phased approach takes longer and may cost more, but can help mitigate the risk of error.
• With this approach, your organization will start by migrating to EAP 7.4, which is eligible for support with ELS.
• In phase 2, your organization will migrate to JDK 17* if necessary.
• Read the JBoss EAP 8 migration guide and identify areas where EAP and Jakarta EE 10 made changes.

Once your organization has developed its migration strategy, you can get to work. There are several important steps you can take while migrating to improve efficiency, prioritize security, and reduce human error.

• Refactor application code to remove java.security.Identity dependencies, replacing them with java.security.Principal or Elytron-based security roles if needed.
• Replace all javax.* packages with jakarta.* in Java imports, XML configurations, and dependencies to align with Jakarta EE 10.
• Analyze and update any unsupported application programming interfaces (APIs) or third-party custom libraries.
• Streamline configuration and deployment across environments with automation tools such as Server Migration Toolkit and Ansible Middleware.
• Streamline the migration process further with advanced artificial intelligence-based modernization tools such as Konveyor AI (Kai).

Proper testing to ensure complete functionality is a critical component of migrating to EAP 8. Organizations with a comprehensive testing strategy are able to adapt to their new operating environment more efficiently and validate changes more effectively. When planning the testing phase of your migration, consider the following steps:

• Start with “smoke tests,” or basic check-ins, to make sure the application can start up and display the proper log-in page.
• Next, move on to unit tests to validate the individual components such as message queues and API components.
• Once your unit tests are complete you can perform integration tests to make sure the units within the system work properly together.
• Finally, functional tests can confirm in a broader sense that the application works as it should from the perspective of a user.