Cognos planning upgrade from 8.4 to Cognos 10.1

[karthickm]

Hi All,

Am currently in the process of upgrading Cognos EP from 8.4 to 10.1 and am stuck with the approach as am still learning Planning..

I do remember reading somewhere that the in-place upgrade doesnot work for Cognos planning and better to use the deployment wizard.. With a tight deadline am struggling to get this upgrade possible and any help would be much appreciated..

Can someone help me get over this with some tips,steps and docs if available..

Thanks
Karthick

[ericlfg]

Hi Karthickm,

The in-place upgrade option does work, however it's just not the best practice.  You should try to use the deployment option where possible, but if need be you can attempt to use the in-place process.  Just make sure you have database backups of -everything- prior to the upgrade so you have something to roll back to.

If you have any other questions post em and we'll see what we can do.

[karthickm]

Hi Eric,

Thanks for your reply on this..

As advised, we have decided not to go with in-place upgrade and to proceed with the deployment method..

Have exported all applications,Admin links, macros and analyst libs from 8.4 and imported in 10.1 and the deployment was successful with some warnings..

I presume we have to remap source and target apps for the admin links and GTP all applications..

Also, could see the new apps container being created in the database but am not sure what would happen to the Publish containers..
Looks like the applications lost the link to the publish containers after import..

Have below things to clarify still.. Your advise would be much helpful to me to proceed further..

Shd the publish containers be upgraded as well?
Do i have to reopen D-cube, D-Lnk and D-list etc and validate again after import?
Have i missed any steps after import?
Any important things that i should be testing before releasing the environment to the users?

Thanks again for all your advise and help..

Thanks
Karthick

[ericlfg]

Hi Karthick,

My pleasure to help.  I'll address each piece of your post individually:

1. The admin links should preserve their references to the applications they were setup against (both source and target).
2. The publish containers need to be recreated through the wizard in the publish section of each application.  Unfortunately there isn't a method to upgrade those containers.
3. You shouldn't have to do anything with your analyst libraries, but I would open a few to make sure they work.  If you have ODBC links I would make sure those work as well.
4. After import you will need to GTP as you've indicated.  I would check off the box to Perform full reconcile and make sure Create Planning Package is selected.

I believe that is it.  I would get your users to fully test all day-to-day aspects of the product to make sure that they're able to do everything they could in 8.4.  Other than making sure the GTP / Reconcile stuff works and then making sure your macros / admin links, do as well, you will have to run the system for a bit and see if anything pops up..

Hope this helps.

Good luck!

[karthickm]

Hi Eric,

Thanks for your valuable comments and Apologies for the late reply on this..

As you mentioned, i have managed to do the EP application and Data import into 10.1.1 environment in the below order to make sure there is no break in links b/w objects..
1) Applications and then GTP
2) Libraries
3) Admin Links
4) Macros

After the import, i have performed below as part of testing,

1) Run GTP macros to publish the applications in portal - Pass
2) Open the grids and compared with DEV portal - Pass
3) Check Deployment logs for errors and corrected them - Pass
4) Ensured Analyst libraries are same with 8.4 in terms of file size and count - Pass
5) Opening Analyst libraries thru Analyst and check for macros within them - Pass
6) Setting application on-line/off-line - Pass
7) Ensure a new application data store has been created in database - Pass
8) Opened each admin link and remap Source and Target application - Done
9) Ensured all imported applications are added to job server cluster and are being monitored - Pass
10) Open Planning manager and access the existing reports from analyst library - Pass

There are some few tests that are failing as below :

1) Running a CAC macro that runs Analyst Macro Fails but running the analuyst macro in Analyst itself is succeeding..
2) Running a Analyst Macro that has ODBC connection fails even in Analyst - Keeps prompting for an username and password though they are changed in DSN and the test connection is successful.. (Looks like it still caches the old user name and password and fails as they are dropped from the database)..

Have been advised by Support to create a new Analyst Macro and that still fails in that step when it tries to update some of the D-Lists,and a D-link which are using this ODBC as a source..

Am not sure if i need to edit the D-List and D-Link to update the credentials and if so, do i have to do this for all the objects from any ODBC connection as i think this shouldnot be the case?

Thanks again for your time on helping me..

Regards
Karthick

[Danno]

There are some few tests that are failing as below :

1) Running a CAC macro that runs Analyst Macro Fails but running the analuyst macro in Analyst itself is succeeding..
2) Running a Analyst Macro that has ODBC connection fails even in Analyst - Keeps prompting for an username and password though they are changed in DSN and the test connection is successful.. (Looks like it still caches the old user name and password and fails as they are dropped from the database)..

Have been advised by Support to create a new Analyst Macro and that still fails in that step when it tries to update some of the D-Lists,and a D-link which are using this ODBC as a source..

Am not sure if i need to edit the D-List and D-Link to update the credentials and if so, do i have to do this for all the objects from any ODBC connection as i think this shouldnot be the case?

Thanks again for your time on helping me..

Regards
Karthick

Here is my experience with these:

1. We ran into this with version 10.1 and were advised by support that this was a known issue and will be fixed in a future release. We revisted this issue with them recently and that answer hasn't changed. (If someone knows differently please let me know). I know that the problem still persists in the latest hotfix we have for 10.1. I use a batch file to run them as required. Not great but it works.

2. Are you definiting the UID and PWD in the dlink? We define them in the driver options dialog and then again in the Analyst macro I enter them the same way in the ODBC Open step. You probably have done this already but thought it worth asking.

[StuartS]

Hello

I had the issue when moving from 8.1 to 8.4 that you mention in 1.

Have a look at the analyst workspace setting in the configuration on ALL machines.

The difference between the analyst macro running in your example is that in the CAC it runs on the server, but in analyst runs on your machine.

Stuart

[karthickm]

Hi Danno,

Thanks for your reply..

Yes.. We have the uid and pwd defined in ODBC, D-Link and in ODBC open step..
This error seems to be appearing whenever we import the objects from other environment (A) which uses a different credentials that what we used in the original environment (B)..

We had to create a user with the same name as it expects to workaorund this issue now..

Regards
Karthick

[karthickm]

Hi Stuart,

We use 128MB as a analyst workspace and these macros were working fine in 8.4 before upgrade..

I tried to run the macros in Analyst located in Server as we do for CAC..

Thanks
karthick

[StuartS]

Sorry for delay.

So to confirm ALL planning servers have a workspace setting of 128000.  Our envuironment is set to 768000 so you can go larger if you have the memory.

The error you are experiencing is very similar to what we had, i.e. works in analyst, but not in cac running analyst macro.

Regards

Stuart