Cognos 8 to Cognso 10 - Uninstall 8 then install 10 or 10 over top of 8?

[owensct]

Hi All,

I've been doing my due diligence and read through the C10 Installation and Configuration guide and can't seem to find an answer to this question.

The guide talks about upgrading/migrating from C7 or earlier to C10, but doesn't say anything about C8 to C10. For C7 or earlier it says uninstall the existing version of Cognos.

But what about C8, do I still need to uninstall 8 before installing 10? (fyi we had 8 partially deployed when it was decided to go to 10, so this is not a production environment).

Our Cognos is running off an MS-SQL content store and IBM told me to copy my existing content store to a new database, ie tasks --> Copy Database which I did naming it Cognos10_Content_Store. I shutdown 8 and did a full copy of the entire C8 folder and all sub-folders. I also went into Cognos config and did a file --> Export.

Oh and yes I have a full backup of the server so that if absolutely necessary I could do a bare metal restore.

So I "think" I'm ready to pull the trigger on this, I just need to know if the un-install of 8 is necessary/advisable/preferred?

Also, once the install is done in order get all my settings back I just need to do an import of the file I exported from C8 config manager correct?

Anything I'm missing?

Thanks

Gordon

[SomeClown]

I cannot remember what was in the documentation, but as a practice, I highly recommend that you uninstall C8 before installing C10.  C8.4 and higher usually uninstalls cleanly, but earlier versions sometimes leave items behind in the registry.  They changed over the install technology at 8.4.1 so new versions tend to not know about old ones.  There's no guarantee that the installs will not conflict.  (For my clients, I always uninstall the old versions)

Copy for new content store?  Typically we recommend a full content store export (deployment) then import it into a new and empty database.  If that doesn't work, we take a backup of existing and point to the current database in the new environment.  The copy method for the database might work so long as you do not change any other settings.  I'm not sure if the new human tasks and annotations would get created, so you may run into an issue with that (still thinking it will probably work).

To restore settings, go into ibm\cognos\c10\configuration.  If there is a cogstartup.xml, rename or delete it.  Copy your export file into this directory and rename to cogstartup.xml.    Most settings will come over but default web virtual directories (as suggested in the documentation) are different in C10.  Restart services.

[MFGF]

Hi,

You have two choices - you can either have Cognos 8 and Cognos 10 installed side by side and running in parallel, or you can uninstall Cognos 8 and install Cognos 10 in its place.  If you go with the former, you will need to use separate content store databases for the two instances, and different port numbers in your configuration settings (by default they will both be set to use the same port numbers).

If I were doing this, I would create a full deployment export in Content Maintenance in Cognos 8, I would create a new, empty database to use as the content store for Cognos 10, install Cognos 10 and point at the new empty database for the content store, make sure it is running properly after installation and configuration, then import the deployment made in Cognos 8 to get my content back.

Regards,

MF.

[owensct]

Thanks for the info guys.

Here is what I ended up doing and it was pretty painless
1. Export C8 configuration
2. Complete backup of the C8 installation
3. Copied C8 content store to a new C10 content store using the MS-SQL SQL Server Management Studio and brought it on-line
4. un-Installed C8
5. Installed C10
6. Went into IIS and deleted the C8 default website and created a new one for C10
7. Renamed the C10 cogstartup.XML to cogstartup.XML.org
8. Renamed my C8 export to cogstartup.XML
9. Went into Cognos config and deleted the C8 content store and added the new, modified the default.htm and index.html for isapi.dll, changed the gateway URI and controller URI, renamed the Cognos service tab to IBM Cognos 10
10. I then started the server and let it go through it's upgrade process.

So far everything seems to be working fine except for the namespace for our HR/Payroll system, but it uses a specialized security process from our vendor so I knew I was going to have to set that one up again.

Just wanted to say thanks for the recommendations.

Cheers,

Gordon