Installing Controller and Cognos 8 BI on the same server - Proven Practice Guide

Transcription

1 Proven Practice Installing Controller and Cognos 8 BI on the same server - Proven Practice Guide Product(s): IBM Cognos Controller Area of Interest: Infrastructure

2 Installing Controller and Cognos 8 BI on the same server - Proven Practice Guide 2 Copyright and Trademarks Licensed Materials - Property of IBM. Copyright IBM Corp IBM, the IBM logo, and Cognos are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at While every attempt has been made to ensure that the information in this document is accurate and complete, some typographical errors or technical inaccuracies may exist. IBM does not accept responsibility for any kind of loss resulting from the of information contained in this document. The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. This document is maintained by the Best Practices, Product and Technology team. You can send comments, suggestions, and additions to cscogpp@ca.ibm.com. Adobe, the Adobe logo, PostScript, and the PostScript logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States, and/or other countries. IT Infrastructure Library is a registered trademark of the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency which is now part of the Office of Government Commerce. Intel, Intel logo, Intel Inside, Intel Inside logo, Intel Centrino, Intel Centrino logo, Celeron, Intel Xeon, Intel SpeedStep, Itanium, and Pentium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other countries, or both. Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, and the Windows logo are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. ITIL is a registered trademark, and a registered community trademark of the Office of Government Commerce, and is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries. Cell Broadband Engine is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both and is d under license therefrom. Java and all Java-based trademarks and logos are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both.

3 Installing Controller and Cognos 8 BI on the same server - Proven Practice Guide 3 Contents 1 INTRODUCTION PURPOSE APPLICABILITY EXCLUSIONS AND EXCEPTIONS IMPORTANT NOTES, TIPS AND ASSUMPTIONS USE THE KNOWLEDGEBASE MISSING STEPS BASIC ASSUMPTIONS INITIAL ARCHITECTURE DESIGN AND PLANNING INSTALLATION FOLDER(S) ORDER OF INSTALLATION NUMBER OF REPORT SERVER ENGINES CONTENTSTORE CONSIDERATIONS INSTALLATION OF COGNOS 8 BI INSTALLATION OF COGNOS 8 BI INSTALLATION OF CONTROLLER CHOOSE SERVER COMPONENTS IIS VIRTUAL DIRECTORIES ADD CONTROLLER LINK TO COGNOS CONNECTION IMPORT CONTROLLER STANDARD REPORTS PACKAGE ( CONTROLLER.ZIP ) INTO COGNOS CONNECTION CONTROLLER CONFIGURATION TEST CONTROLLER APPENDICES FURTHER READING... 13

4 Installing Controller and Cognos 8 BI on the same server - Proven Practice Guide 4 1 Introduction 1.1 Purpose This document is designed to be a simple guide (complete with screenshots) for one method of how to install Controller and Cognos 8 BI on the same server. This document is intended to be utilised by IBM Cognos (and partners) technical consultants, to help understand the concepts involved behind performing an installation of Controller on the same server as where Cognos 8 BI is installed. In other words, this document is intended to be d as a training guide for technical consultants to increase their knowledge of Controller and BI installation integration, so as to give experience before performing the same tasks for real at a customer s site. It is also possible for less-experienced people (for example customer s I.T. departments) to this document too, so long as the customer accepts responsibility for any problems that may arise from the of this document In other words, the customer accepts that IBM s recommendation is always to employ an experienced IBM Cognos Technical Consultant to help them install Controller. Employing an experienced IBM technical consultant will ensure that the risk is minimised of unexpected issues arising from an upgrade. By reading this document, the intention is to make consultants understand the concepts of installing Controller and BI on the same server, making their installation as easy as possible, with the minimum of possibility for errors/issues. 1.2 Applicability This document is based on installing Controller RTM (released July 2010) on the same server as Cognos 8 BI version (released 2009). In general: Each version of Controller is only tested by IBM R&D with the latest (most recently) version of BI available when Controller is released Therefore, in general the officially supported combinations of Controller and BI is the latest version of BI available when that Controller version was released. However, it is the author s experience that all BI/Controller version combinations appear to work OK together, although some combinations are easier to integrate than others Therefore, feel free to this document to install ANY combination of version of Controller and BI on the same server.

5 Installing Controller and Cognos 8 BI on the same server - Proven Practice Guide 5 However, be aware that there may be slight differences in recommended installation steps between different version combinations of each product 1.3 Exclusions and Exceptions There are an infinite variety of possible customer I.T. environments/needs/specialist requirements. Therefore, IBM has intentionally made Controller and BI flexible to give the customer many different ways to install Controller & BI Therefore the advice in this document may have to be modified by the reader to fit in with their specific needs/environment. Although this document demonstrates proven practices suitable for most single-server environments, it is not necessarily perfect for all environments. Employing an experienced IBM Cognos technical consultant to upgrade your Controller server(s) is always the recommended & ideal scenario. This document is not intended to entirely replace the official standard documentation (located on the install CDs) such as: ctrl_arch.pdf Architecture and Deployment guide ctrl_inst.pdf Installation and Configuration guide qrc_ctrl_inst.pdf Getting Started Installation guide Instead you can this guide as a concise summary companion to the official documentation. In any event of overlap, the standard documentation takes precedence. NOTE: This document was last updated by the author August 23 rd 2010.

6 Installing Controller and Cognos 8 BI on the same server - Proven Practice Guide 6 2 Important Notes, Tips and Assumptions 2.1 Use the Knowledgebase Many of the author s tips and recommendations refer to IBM s excellent knowledgebase, which contain the IBM Technotes (previously known as KB articles ). This can be found here: It is absolutely VITAL that the reader s this knowledgebase resource, since it is an invaluable help for almost all issues. In addition, all public Proven Practice documents can be found here: Missing Steps This document is NOT designed to be a step-by-step guide for installing Controller and BI. In other words, many of the steps (for example installing server prerequisites such as Adobe Reader, Microsoft Excel, Windows 2003 Support Tools etc.) are deliberately omitted from this document. Instead, the purpose of this document is to ONLY demonstrate the steps that vary between a standard single-server Controller-only installation and a standard single-server Controller and BI installation. For more information on these missing steps, see the author s separate Proven Practice documents such as Installing & Configuring IBM Cognos Controller server. 2.3 Basic Assumptions To simplify the document, the demonstration will be made using: Windows 2003 Server 32-bit Microsoft SQL

7 Installing Controller and Cognos 8 BI on the same server - Proven Practice Guide 7 3 Initial Architecture Design and Planning 3.1 Installation folder(s) In many Controller / BI version combinations, it is possible to install both software products into the same folder (for example C:\Program Files\Cognos\c8). For this to work, you must: (1) Have a compatible Controller / BI version combination One example of a compatible combination is Controller and Cognos 8 BI (2) install the *older* version first (*before* the *newer* version). This is beca the installation routines will detect what software components are already installed, and will be able to upgrade older versions of components For example, you would install Cognos BI first, and then afterwards install Controller into the same folder. Many customers/consultants prefer to install in the same folder, and in some situations this is a good idea. However, installing into the same folder may not be the best idea for all situations: For example, it can make version upgrades / problem troubleshooting more complicated In addition, installing into the same folder will ONLY work for certain BI/Controller version combinations o For example, see Technote for details on the fact that Cognos BI and Controller 8.5 RTM cannot install in the same folder. This document shall demonstrate installing Controller into DIFFERENT folders. The main reason why this document shall demonstrate installing Controller and BI into separate folders is that this method should work for ALL version combinations of Controller and BI.

8 Installing Controller and Cognos 8 BI on the same server - Proven Practice Guide Order of installation Even when installing Cognos products into different folders, it is generally a good idea/recommended to install *older* software versions before newer versions. We shall therefore install Cognos 8 BI first Then we shall install Controller afterwards. 3.3 Number of Report Server engines Controller is bundled with a cut down version of Cognos 8 BI. This cut down version can be thought of as purely the BI report engine. Its job is (essentially) to perform the following jobs: 1. Power all 200-or so of the Controller built-in standard reports (noncustomisable system reports) 2. Provide (optional) Cognos 8 security (such as using an Active Directory namespace It is perfectly possible to perform a full install of both Controller and BI on the same server (in separate directories). This would (of course) therefore lead to two copies of many components installed on the same server. For example, there would be two copies of Cognos Configuration, and two report engines installed. Having multiple copies of the same components on the same server is normally: (1) Inefficient (2) and (just as important) more confusing to understand/install/support/upgrade. Therefore, this document shall assume that the server will only contain ONE copy of the BI components. In other words, during the BI installation, we shall install ALL the BI components During the Controller software installation, we shall install all the components *except* the bundled BI (cut down report engine ) components This will give us a system that has only one report service, one Cognos Configuration program, one dispatcher etc. 3.4 Contentstore considerations Controller does not a contentstore for anything other than the BI report engine that is bundled with the software. Therefore, since we are only going to have one report server service running (the BI report server) we shall only need one Contentstore database.

9 Installing Controller and Cognos 8 BI on the same server - Proven Practice Guide 9 4 Installation of Cognos 8 BI Installation of Cognos 8 BI Perform a default (full) installation of Cognos 8 BI into the following folder: C:\Program Files\cognos\c8\c8_BI Afterwards configure the server as normal (as you would for any Cognos 8 BI server installation). For example create IIS virtual directories cognos8 and cgi-bin o Naturally, however, you will need to remember that they need to point to a slightly different folder location ( \c8\c8_bi\...) compared with the default folder location Launch Cognos Configuration and configure as normal Launch Cognos Connection website, and test that it all works OK You will notice that there is not (of course) any link to launch Controller:

10 Installing Controller and Cognos 8 BI on the same server - Proven Practice Guide 10 5 Installation of Controller Choose Server components During the installation wizard, choose to install Controller into the following new folder: C:\Program Files\cognos\c8\c8_CCR When prompted, as a general rule deselect (untick) any component which has already been installed as part of the previous BI install. For example: As you can see (above) I have deselected: Content Manager The subcomponent Application Tier Components and Gateway When prompted inside Shortcut Folder choose a suitable name (such as IBM Cognos Controller ). After the installation has completed you will see that (as intended) we do NOT have a copy of Cognos Configuration listed inside the folder:

11 Installing Controller and Cognos 8 BI on the same server - Proven Practice Guide IIS Virtual Directories Create the Controller-specific IIS virtual directories as usual. In other words, create IIS virtual directories controllerbin, controller, controllerserver, and controllerhelp Naturally, however, you will need to remember that they need to point to a slightly different folder location ( \c8\c8_ccr\...) compared with the default folder location 5.3 Add Controller link to Cognos Connection When you launch Cognos Connection ( you will see that there is still no link to launch Controller. This is beca we have installed the Controller link component(s) into a separate folder from the BI components. To fix this, simply: Open the folder \c8\c8_ccr\webapps\p2pd\web-inf\services\ Copy the file 'controllerstudio.xml' to the folder \c8\c8_bi\webapps\p2pd\web-inf\services\ From the 'Start Menu', launch IBM Cognos Configuration Click the 'restart service' icon (or alternatively, simply reboot the entire server) Test. You should now see the Controller link Consolidate my financial information : TIP: For more information, see IBM Technote #

12 Installing Controller and Cognos 8 BI on the same server - Proven Practice Guide Import Controller Standard Reports package ( Controller.zip ) into Cognos Connection When you launch Cognos Connection, you will see that there is still no deployment package Controller available to import into Cognos Connection. This is beca we have installed the Controller link component(s) into a separate folder from the BI components. To fix this, simply: Open the folder \c8\c8_ccr\deployment\ Copy the file Controller.zip to the folder \c8\c8_bi\deployment\ Although the file CCR82_DM.zip is not needed for standard reports, some customers may find it ful to have this file for their customised reporting needs, so please repeat the last step but this time for the file CCR82_DM.zip. You should now be able to import the Controller package into Cognos Connection: TIP: For more information, see IBM Technote # Controller Configuration Launch Controller Configuration from the start menu, and configure the settings as usual/normal. Complete all other necessary configuration tasks (such as those 5.6 Test Controller Launch Controller as normal, and test.

13 Installing Controller and Cognos 8 BI on the same server - Proven Practice Guide 13 6 Appendices 6.1 Further Reading The following related Technotes may be ful: Alternatively, simply search the Controller Technotes ( 947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/Overview/Software/Information_Management/Cognos_8_Controller) for keywords such as: interoperability distributed integrate / integration