Deploying existing Planning Application into Cognos 8.4.1

[civicman4]

We just upgraded our planning environment from 8.4 to 8.4.1 and we need to Deploy the planning application from the old environment to the new one.  Whats the best way of doing this and what are the steps?

[ericlfg]

Hey Civicman,

Is the 8.4 environment still available?  Are you using the same hardware from the 8.4 environment?  As in did you uninstall 8.4 and reinstall with 8.4.1?  Same or different database server?

There's 2 potential options that will depend on your above answers to the questions regarding your process:

1. If the environment is no longer available and you upgraded onto the existing hardware and using the same database environment:
At this point the applications will be upgraded in place as you've already replaced the 8.4 server architecture.  When you interact with each application it should prompt that it needs to upgrade and it'll do this.  This method is generally not in scope of a best practice.  Exception: You can generally bring up a single server environment and re-attach to a non-upgraded content store / planning store if you really want to get a deployment.

2. If the environment is still available and you intended to replace the server software on existing hardware (or new hardware / new database, etc):
You'll want to use deployments and export the applications, macros and admin links that can then be imported back into the new software environment.

These are generally the 2 major paths for an upgrade.  Specific steps are quite extensive, but the general premise is located in the install and configuration guide:

Part 3, Chapter 6: Upgrading to IBM Cognos Planning 8:
http://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/8.4.1/cp_inst_cr_winux.pdf

Hope this helps!
Ericlfg