Cognosbloggen

Hej,

Idag tänkte jag frångå min princip med att bara skriva på svenska. Ni som läser min blogg kan ju engelska och ibland är det bara dumt att översätta något. Hur som helst så finner ni svaren på en hög med frågor som ställdes ang uppgradering vid två Tech Talks som handlade om uppgradering till Cognos 10. Den 8 juni är det dags för ännu ett Tech talk på samma tema för er som missat dom två första. Det är via webben och det kostar inget. Detaljer om eventet finner ni i första stycket nedan.

Hälsningar
Pontus Sandgren, Produktspecialist IBM Cognos BI

Hi,

Have upgrade questions?  Beginning to plan the upgrade to Cognos 10.1?  The next, and last, session of the ”Upgrading to Cognos 10.1″ Tech Talk Insider is happening on June 8th at 9:00 am EST.  This session discusses planning and practices to help you upgrade along with demo’s showing how to use Lifecycle Manager during the Cognos 10.1 upgrade process.

To register for the Tech Talk follow the link:

Here are some of the questions, with the answers, that were asked during the last Tech Talk Insider session presented on this topic.

There were many great questions and I’ve tried to answer them all.  The site above also has a Lifecycle Manager and Upgrade FAQ that you should take a look at.  Some of the questions asked during the tech talk will be

added to those FAQ’s.  Below are the questions asked during the tech talk.

1. Does Lifecycle Manager work with reports with multiple prompts ?

• Yes,  Lifecycle Manager can automatically and manually capture prompt values for you, even if the report has many prompt variables required.  See chapter 4 of the Lifecycle Manager User Guide.

2. What is the reason for not upgrading reports at startup?  We upgraded at startup in all 3 environments?

• During the upgrade there are many operations going on.  The content store is being updated, schema is updated, tables and columns are added. Let this process finish without upgrading the report specifications is the best way to proceed.  Also, when many reports are involved, the startup process can take an extremely long time leading one to believe that the startup/upgrade has failed.  By separating the task of upgrading the report specifications until after the content store upgrade has finished is the best way to upgrade the application and reports.

3. Is it recommended to make a copy of the content store database and then point the new environment to it? Or is it recommended to create a black database for the content store, then export and import?

• The recommendation is to make a copy of the Cognos 8.x content store database and point Cognos 10.1 at this copy and have it upgraded on startup.

4. Are there any specific tools for Consistency Checks?

• Consistency Checks, internal and external, are build into the product.   In Cognos Connection go to:  Administration -> Configuration -> Content Administration and then select ”New Consistency Check”.  The internal consistency check should be scheduled to run on a regular basis.

5. When do you upgrade reports?

• After you have completed the content store database and chosen not to upgrade your reports, you then begin the process of systematically upgrading the reports is smaller groups.   In Cognos Connection go to: Administration -> Configuration -> Content Administration and then select ”New Report Upgrade” and choose the report content that you want upgraded. All content must be upgraded but using this method allows content to be upgraded as it will be validated against Cognos 8.x using Lifecycle Manager.

6. How about exporting the whole content store from cognos 8 cognos connection and importing it in the IBM Cognos 10 Cognos Connection. Is that a safer practice in terms of upgrading the content store to Cognos 10.1? Is there any danger in doing that?

• While there may be reasons in some instances for doing Cognos Deployments, this is not the recommended approach.  Cognos Deployments are for moving content between Dev -> QA -> Prod, not intended for use during an upgrade.  The full deployment was created for cases when the content store database is being changed, for instance your company is moving from Oracle to DB2.  You would need to use a full deployment in this case. Content store database upgrades between versions is the recommended approach to upgrading your applications to Cognos 10.1

7. Are the Java scripts used in Reports affected after upgrade to C10? We once faced issues while upgrading from Cognos 8.2 to Cognos 8.4.

• Javascript in your reports should not be affected during an upgrade but should be tested.  If you used the documentation on the Proven Practice site to build your reports with javascript then you will be successful. https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/data/library/cognos/cognosprovenpractices.html –  Upgrading JavaScript Applications”

8. Is Life cycle manager a desktop installation like FM?

• Lifecycle Manager can be installed on a laptop, desktop or server. Lifecycle Manager installs into it’s own directory and requires a minimum of 1 gig of available RAM to run, although 2 gig is recommended for best performance.  Another requirement of Lifecycle Manager is to have sufficient disk space available.  As you heard on the demo, Lifecycle Manager executes reports and retrieves the output back to the Lifecycle Manager machine.  This mean for every report you execute for comparison, two outputs will be retrieved to the Lifecycle Manager machine.

9. Is there a workaround for reports that have report runtime(date/time in the headers and/or footers) listed when doing output compare? They will flag as different.

• Lifecycle Manager accounts for this.  To properly setup the environment so that this is not an issue go to the Lifecycle Manager User Guide and go to the section titled ”Specify a Static Date/Time Value in Executed Reports”.

10. Does this upgrade feature packaged with cognos 10 or it is a separate module?

• Cognos 10.1 upgrade is built right into the application and happens when Cognos 10.1 Configuration is pointed at an Cognos 8.x content store database.   The actual upgrade process begins when a start is performed from Cognos Configuration.

11. Where would the configuration take place to link content between Cognos 10.1 and Cognos 8.4?

• Multi-version Coexistence(MVC) is configured by setting up some Advanced Parameters.  The following IBM Technote has been created to help setup MVC in the environment. https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21459041

12. Is there a setting to enable the button to link to Cognos 8 content? We don’t see that button. Also, does Cognos 8.x have to be on the same server or can be in different server for Multi-version Coexistence(MVC)?

• There is no requirement for the Cognos 8.3+ or Cognos 10.1 applications to be on the same physical hardware.  To properly configure MVC see the technote in Q11.

13. How is the content in My Folders handled during the Cognos 10.1 upgrade ?

• After you have completed the content store database and chosen not to upgrade your reports, you then begin the process of systematically upgrading the reports is smaller groups.   In Cognos Connection go to: Administration -> Configuration -> Content Administration and then select ”New Report Upgrade” and choose ”My Folders”.  When this task is created and executed, all My Folder content will be successfully upgraded.

14. Do I need to export the whole content store from Cognos 8.x and import into Cognos 10.1 before I can use Life Cycle Manager to run the comparison?

• The content must be upgraded and in the same location in Cognos 8.x and Cognos 10.1 to be validated using Lifecycle Manager.  This is another good reason I recommend the content store upgrade be used during the upgrade to Cognos 10.1

15. Does life cycle manager support conversions from older Cognos versions like Cognos 8.2?

• Yes, Lifecycle Manager support for previous versions is extensive:
• ReportNet® 1.1 MR3 or MR4 as a source environment only
• IBM Cognos 8 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, and IBM Cognos Business Intelligence 10.1.0 as a source or target environment
• Cognos 8.1 is not officially support by Lifecycle Manager but in most cases will work and provide a lot of value during the upgrade process

16.  Can Cognos 8.2 coexist with Cognos 10.1?

• Multi-version Coexistence(MVC) does not support Cognos 8.2 only Cognos 8.3 and above.  Supported versions and configuration can be found in the following technote. https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21459041

17. How does life cycle manager works with SSL?

• Lifecycle Manager does support SSL.  When entering the Cognos 8.x or Cognos 10.1 URI’s into the configuration of the Lifecycle Manager project, the SSL URI is specified.

18. Can you use Lifecycle Manager to just gather information on all reports and other things in one shot. For e.g. if we just want to compare all objects in 8.4 to 10.1

• Yes, the Lifecycle Manager demo that I’ve published to YouTube shows how to do this.  This is shown in the second half of the demo and is referred to as the ”One Step Comparison”.  This way of using Lifecycle Manager is very quick and does not do validation of reports. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6Dd9XOjeyE

19. Is the licensing model the same as with Cognos 8?

• This is a question that can be properly answered by contacting your account representative.

20. Does lifecycle manager validate events in event studio?

• Lifecycle Manager does not currently support validating Event Studio.

21. We use Views to run Prompted reports with different parameter values. Can you run views on Lifecycle manager?

• Lifecycle Manager does not currently support validating report views but it does of course validate and compare the base reports.

22. Where can we find a comprehensive document of what Life Cycle Manager can and CANNOT do? For example, does it test cubes, agents, bursting, etc..

• Continue to look to the upgrade pages for information on Lifecycle Manager tips and techniques.  Currently Lifecycle Manager tests Report, Query and Analysis Studio reports, Lifecycle Manager does not care nor know what the underlying datasource is. http://www.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/customercenter/upgrade.html

23. Do you still have Analysis Studio and Powerplay studio as separate tools in Cognos 10.1?

• Yes.  Posted on the upgrade site listed in Q22 is an Upgrade FAQ.  Go to Question 13 for a detailed answer.

24. We are getting many error/warning messages on upgrade of the content store. What is the recommended approach for evaluating and remediating these errors?

• Before exporting or copying the Cognos 8.x content store a Internal Consistency Check should be executed.  This should be completed as ”Find only”.  If there are inconsistencies in the content store they need to be investigated before upgrading the content store to Cognos 10.1.   A customer support ticket should be started and the details of the inconsistencies should be attached so that we can look at the messages and resolve them.  There is no point to upgrading a content store that has inconsistencies.

There were also a number of questions on Series7 migration to Cognos 10.1. On the upgrade site, below, you will find a section specific to the migration of Series7 content to Cognos 10.1.  Migration is significantly different then the upgrade of Cognos 8.x applications to Cognos 10.1 which is why it has it’s own pages.  We do not want customers getting confused between upgrading and migrating.

Cognos 10.1 offers a lot and upgrading to Cognos 10.1 can be a smooth process providing you create a detailed upgrade plan and test thoroughly. Be sure to become familiar with all new features to take full advantage of the Cognos 10.1 platform.

ALSO NEW:

A new upgrade site was just released with information and demo’s to help you plan the upgrade to Cognos 10.1

You can also find valuable Lifecycle Manager demo’s on YouTube.

I hope to see you there!!

Greg

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Thanks

Greg