Install 32-bit Cognos 8.4 BI on WS2008 x64 with IIS7?

[cogswell]

I am new to Cognos (I don't know anything about webserver technologies either), please be kind! :)

My system software specs are as follows:
Windows Server 2008 Standard 64-bit with Web Server (IIS7) role added; ISAPI, ISAPI Filters and CGI installed via >THIS guide<.
SQL Server 2008 64-bit set up with case-insensitive, context-sensitive collation ('Latin1-General' or something) and using Windows Authentication
Sun JRE v1.6.0 update 13 (both 32-bit and 64-bit versions installed); JAVA_HOME user environment variable set to point to the 32-bit version

I am attempting to install 32-bit Cognos 8.4 BI installed on this system. I had heard of using Apache webserver instead of IIS7 but I didn't find a single case where a 64-bit Apache webserver was used in installing Cognos.

So, in a nutshell, I:
1. installed the 32-bit server in C:\Program Files (x86)\cognos\c8. Did not start the configuration manager.
2. created a content store in SQL Server 2008 x64 called 'CognosContentStorage'. Set up schemas, etc. and did what was necessary.
3. set up the cognos 8 gateway in IIS7 via >THIS guide<; used CGI, not ISAPI.
4. started IBM Cognos Configuration Manager; connected (used SQL Server database with Windows Authentication option) and tested the content store connection. No errors reported. Started the services via the play button. No errors other than the expected 'no mail server' error reported. Confirmed that my Content Store DB gets populated with lots of tables.
5. Set up my browsers IE8 and FF3 to accept all cookies, permit JAVA etc. for intranet sites as required.

So then, everything should have worked right? Well, it didn't. Going to both http://localhost/cognos8 and http://servername/cognos8 attempted to redirect me to the expected page where it times out without showing anything (i.e. it shows the standard IE 'This page cannot be displayed' error page).

On 2-3 occasions, when I randomly mucked around with IIS and Cognos Configuration Manager settings (I don't remember exactly what I changed), it gave me an error page appearing to have originated from the Cognos Server (not the standard IE timeout error page), with the message:

The Cognos gateway is unable to connect to the Cognos BI server. The server maybe unavailable or gateway may not be correctly configured.

When I use the dispatcher URI http://localhost:9300/something-something, it does show me the welcome page... but none of the links for the applications work! For example, if I attempt to start Report Studio from the dropdown menu, nothing happens.

I do not know what I am doing wrong; even the cognos logfiles look clean to my untrained eyes. I have been trying to install this for a week now!

HELP!! :'(

[the_xxx]

I dont think its a good idea to have a 32 bit version on 64 bit hardware..check for the downward comapatability !

[cogswell]

Thank you for your reply. I am running it with Apache 2.2 (XAMPP) without problems. I'd still like to learn how to run it with IIS7, if nothing just for the sake of knowledge.

Has anyone installed 32-bit Cognos on Vista x64 with IIS7? I believe the installation procedure cannot be too different when we substitute Vista x64 with Windows Server 2008 x64...

[bdp]

I have successfully been running on Vista Ultimate and IIS 7 with Cognos 8.3 for well over a year.
I run with the cognosisapi.dll instead of the cognos.cgi and it works just fine.

I've just installed 8.4 and the Portal is running just fine ... I'm hitting snags with Controller, but I think that has to do with some other issues. ;-)

[fgarav]

@cogswell... hi ...
can u post step by step configuration of sql 2008 .. i have some problem to configure it... can u tell  me about setup of the content store, i have try to do it, but after i removed that cognos installation create , and recreate it pointing to sqlserver , the validate option is not able to contact the server... any suggest ?

[surajcognos]

i was trying to install cognos 8.4 in vista ultimate 32,
when i was following the configuration from IBM cognos i have problem in setting line # 8
(((((((8. In the Actions pane click Add, enter the path to either cognosisapi.dll or cognos.cgi depending on which you will use (default C:\Program Files\cognos\c8\cgi-bin\cognosisapi.dll or C:\Program Files\cognos\c8\cgi-bin\cogno.cgi), check the "Allow extension path to execute" box, then click OK.))))))

the iis7 won't let me enter the path cognos.cgi,,,, eventhough i couldn't configure the ISAPI and CGI both way .

what should i do make it work ((((((C:\Program Files\cognos\c8\cgi-bin\cognos.cgi)))))

may be i am not doing good in mapping in iis

if any one of you have an any idea so please send me the details

when i was trying to click on Administer Cognos Content i got this error """"PF-SRV-6116 Unable to process the document, target is not valid or the target was not received.""""

i know that sounds like i am not doing good in seeting in Mapping in IIS

lets share the idea plese

[praveennb]

I have successfully installed 32 bit Cognos 8.4 BI on windows 2008 Server 64 bit enterprise edition,

the guide link posted above is missing the last part in addition to following the above guide, you will need to create a 32 bit application pool and add the cgi-bin directory to the 32-bit application pool.

i also ran into same error "The Cognos gateway is unable to connect to the Cognos BI server. The server maybe unavailable or gateway may not be correctly configured." earlier after completing the above steps it works fine

Hope this helps someone in future

[sir_jeroen]

I dont think its a good idea to have a 32 bit version on 64 bit hardware..check for the downward comapatability !

It's more advisable to install the 32-bit version on a 64 bit OS because Cognos is in the background still 32-bit and not all components are 64-bit enable. So if you do an install of all components you would get a mixed environment with 32-bit components and 64-bit components. And I've done multiple installations of Cognos 8.4 on Windows 2008 x64 and windows 2003 x64. The only tricky part with W2008 is the IIS7 configuration and with w2003 x64 you will have to change IIS6 to run in 32-bit mode. That's all....