Need to install both Cognos 8.3 and 8.4 in same box

[sujanraj]

Installed Cognos 8.3 and 8.4 in same box. Cognos 8.3 is working fine but my Cognos 8.4 is not working. Cognos connection giving error message: "The IBM Cognos gateway is unable to connect to the IBM Cognos BI server. The server may be unavailable or the gateway may not be correctly configured. "
Also, content store database connection failed. error message: "Content Manager is unable to access the content store. Verify your database connection parameters, and then contact your database administrator for assistance."

FYI- I did setup virtual directory for both Cognos8 and Cognos84
Please let me know where to troubleshoot this; to make both working. Is there any port issue?
Thanks

[MFGF]

Hi,

Provided you have set up different virtual directories for 8.3 and 8.4, the other things to check are:

1. Have you used different port numbers for the two instances?  If not, you need to (and don't forget the shutdown port and logging port numbers when you are making the change).

2. Have you defined different content store databases for the two instances?  Again, you will need to do this to allow both instances to run.

Regards,

MF.

[nfldbunker]

hi

i have both 8.3 and 8.4.1 setup on the same box. i have both running the same time as i want to have 841 working perfectly prior to making 841 my production box. I have 2 virtual directories in IIS and also  there are differences in the config files such as port,gateway etc. i am not working today but can check some of the differrences tomrrow for you

bunker

[sujanraj]

which config file we are looking at? What is the location? We need to make changes in content store?

Thnaks
Sujan

hi

i have both 8.3 and 8.4.1 setup on the same box. i have both running the same time as i want to have 841 working perfectly prior to making 841 my production box. I have 2 virtual directories in IIS and also  there are differences in the config files such as port,gateway etc. i am not working today but can check some of the differrences tomrrow for you

bunker

[MFGF]

which config file we are looking at? What is the location? We need to make changes in content store?

Thnaks
Sujan

What Bunker means is that within Cognos Configuration, you need to use different port numbers in the environment URIs and a different virtual directory name in the Gateway URI, plus a different logging port number.  The two instances of Cognos 8 cannot share the same content store database either, so you will need a different one for each.

MF.

[nfldbunker]

HI

We have cognos 8 and cognos 841 setup as 2 dirrerent instances in IIS.

Also in each of the config files for 8 and 841 there are differences in the following:
gateway URI: http://xxxx16:80/cognos8/cgi-bin/cognos.cgi
                   http://xxxx16:80/cognos841/cgi-bin/cognos.cgi
Also the dispather URI,controler URI. The dispather settings are slightly different and other URI settings

example: dispather URI (cognos 8)
             http://xxxx16:9300/p2pd/servlet/dispatch
             http://xxxx16:9400/p2pd/servlet/dispatch

hope this helps

[RobsWalker68]

Hi Sujan,
Ok to take it from the top.

You have an existing Cognos 8.3 installation currently running on the server and is this working ok with no issues? You also want to install a new Cognos 8.4 installation on the same server and operate both in parallel.

Will the new installation be a fresh copy with no content or do you want the 8.4 version to also contain the same content held in the 8.3 server, albeit upgrade to 8.4?
Depending on what you want to do the install steps will be slightly different. I've presumed it's a fresh install

1. Install the gateway, application and content manager components into a new directory. Make sure you have a TEMP system variable that points to temporary location and you have admin rights on the server.

2. Create a new set of virtual directories to point to the physical directories just installed.

3. If this is a fresh install, then create a new content store database in SQL Server making sure you follow the guidelines in the Installation and configuration guide on collation sequences, character encoding etc. Also make sure that the database user account that Cognos will use to access the content store has the required rights to create the relevant tables.

4. In Cognos configuration change the ports e.g. change the URI ports to 9700 instead of the default 9300. Also remember to change the shutdown and logging ports to something different.  The logging port is found in the logging section and the shutdown port you can change by clicking on the service name.

5. To be on the safe side, in the section IBM Cognos 8 Service rename the service to be something different from your existing 8.3 service.

6. Configure and test access to your content store.

7. For simplicity, I would leave the mail server and authentication as is for now.

8.Save and start the configuration.

If it doesn't start then look in the cogserver.log to see what the specific error messages are and troubleshoot from there. The troubleshooting section in the Installation and Configuration guide may help you in that respect.

A link to the guide is posted below.

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/c8bi/v8r4m0/index.jsp

Hope this helps

Kind Regards