Content Manager failover configuration

[Raghuvir]

Hi all,

we want to configure a failover installation for content manager in cognos. we have never tried this before and will be the first time to do this.

the plan is when one content manager goes down, the back up content manager should become active which prevents the cognos service from shutting down.

is our requirement feasible ? is this possible to implement in cognos ?

Request you to guide us with the same. Thanks in advance.

Regards

[MFGF]

Hi all,

we want to configure a failover installation for content manager in cognos. we have never tried this before and will be the first time to do this.

the plan is when one content manager goes down, the back up content manager should become active which prevents the cognos service from shutting down.

is our requirement feasible ? is this possible to implement in cognos ?

Request you to guide us with the same. Thanks in advance.

Regards

Hi,

Yes - should be quite simple. Take a look at the Installation and Configuration Guide, Chapter 6 (page 139) for details on how to configure it:

http://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/10.2.1.1/inst_cr_winux.pdf

Cheers!

MF.

[SMD]

Hi

Install another instance of content manager componant, configure this. Which ever CM you start later would be failover CM automatically. You do not have to configure anything special.

Cheers!

[Raghuvir]

Hi,

Yes - should be quite simple. Take a look at the Installation and Configuration Guide, Chapter 6 (page 139) for details on how to configure it:

http://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/documentation/docs/en/10.2.1.1/inst_cr_winux.pdf

Cheers!

MF.

Hi MFGF,

thanks for the link. i am referring it and finding it difficult to understand the steps.


what i have done is, i have a single server installation of cognos BI on a server "A" and i have installed content manager on server "B". i m having doubts related to the entries to be done in cognos configuration on server "B"

like what should be the URIs for the other Content Manager computers and should the content manager point to a new database ?

Regards

[Raghuvir]

Hi MFGF,

On server "B" i have just installed the Content Manager component, would that be fine ?

Regards

[MFGF]

Hi MFGF,

thanks for the link. i am referring it and finding it difficult to understand the steps.


what i have done is, i have a single server installation of cognos BI on a server "A" and i have installed content manager on server "B". i m having doubts related to the entries to be done in cognos configuration on server "B"

like what should be the URIs for the other Content Manager computers and should the content manager point to a new database ?

Regards

Hi,

The steps I pointed you to on page 139 say that in the "Content Manager URIs" entry on each server, you leave the URI of the "local" content manager in place (ie the URI of the machine you are configuring) and add another uri pointing to the "other" content manager. For the standby content manager, it also says for the "Content Store" configuration "Ensure that the values for all of the properties match what you configured on the default active Content Manager computer." This means you specify the exact same server and database for the content store on the standby content manager as for the live content manager.

So, in a nutshell...

On server A (your live content manager) you need to add a second content manager URI pointing to machine B
On server B (your standby content manager) you need to add a second content manager URI pointing to machine A
On server B (your standby content manager) you need to point at the exact same content store database that you do on server A

Cheers!

MF.

[Raghuvir]

hi MFGF,

What if the database server which i have pointed on machine "A" goes down, will the standby content manager on machine "B"up the services of cognos without any downtime ?

Regards

[MFGF]

hi MFGF,

What if the database server which i have pointed on machine "A" goes down, will the standby content manager on machine "B"up the services of cognos without any downtime ?

Regards

Hi,

If the content store database server dies, this is outside of the Cognos architecture and is not something you can configure around within Cognos. Typically you use database failover technologies or mirroring to combat this, but setting this up isn't a Cognos task.

Having a standby content manager is a failsafe against the Cognos content manager tier dropping out and stopping Cognos. If you have content manager on a single server with the rest of your architecture (application server processing and gateway), which is what you appear to have currently, then if this server dies you don't have an architecture for a standby content manager to support because it's not just content manager that disappears.

What exactly is the issue you are trying to resolve here?

MF.

[Raghuvir]

Hi,

If the content store database server dies, this is outside of the Cognos architecture and is not something you can configure around within Cognos. Typically you use database failover technologies or mirroring to combat this, but setting this up isn't a Cognos task.

Having a standby content manager is a failsafe against the Cognos content manager tier dropping out and stopping Cognos. If you have content manager on a single server with the rest of your architecture (application server processing and gateway), which is what you appear to have currently, then if this server dies you don't have an architecture for a standby content manager to support because it's not just content manager that disappears.

What exactly is the issue you are trying to resolve here?

MF.

Hi MFGF,

Im trying this for the first time, so i might ask silly questions, please dont mind me.

What i want to achieve is when the content manager database to which machine "A" is pointed  fails, there should be some mechanism which makes the standby content manager active which is configured on machine "B" so that there is no downtime.

the link you sent me will help me to achieve this or is it a different configuration ?

Regards

[MFGF]

Hi MFGF,

Im trying this for the first time, so i might ask silly questions, please dont mind me.

What i want to achieve is when the content manager database to which machine "A" is pointed  fails, there should be some mechanism which makes the standby content manager active which is configured on machine "B" so that there is no downtime.

the link you sent me will help me to achieve this or is it a different configuration ?

Regards

Hi,

You seem to be using the concepts of "content manager" and "content store database" interchangeably. They are different things.

Content Manager is one of the processing tiers fundamental to the Cognos architecture. It handles security, cryptography and transfer of data to/from the content store database.
Content Store Database is the relational database you are using to store the content for your Cognos 10 instance.

Cognos allows standby content manager processing, so that if your live content manager fails, it will kick in, connect to your content store database, and resume content manager processing.

If you are referring to having some sort of failover for the content store database, then this is a technology outside of the Cognos architecture. Typically database vendors offer this sort of failover.

If you configure a standby content manager to point to a different content store database, what mechanism keeps the "other" content store database updated with everything in the live one? Cognos doesn't provide this facility - it's a database replication challenge, and it's the database vendor who provides the solution, not Cognos.

Cheers!

MF.

[hellotherecognos]

Hi,

The steps I pointed you to on page 139 say that in the "Content Manager URIs" entry on each server, you leave the URI of the "local" content manager in place (ie the URI of the machine you are configuring) and add another uri pointing to the "other" content manager. For the standby content manager, it also says for the "Content Store" configuration "Ensure that the values for all of the properties match what you configured on the default active Content Manager computer." This means you specify the exact same server and database for the content store on the standby content manager as for the live content manager.

So, in a nutshell...

On server A (your live content manager) you need to add a second content manager URI pointing to machine B
On server B (your standby content manager) you need to add a second content manager URI pointing to machine A
On server B (your standby content manager) you need to point at the exact same content store database that you do on server A

Cheers!

MF.

Hi MFGF,

sorry to quote an old post. I am doing some research on cognos HA and came across your post which is useful to me. However I'd like to clarify the above information vs Reply#2 of http://www.cognoise.com/index.php/topic,24202.msg75772.html#msg75772, which mentioned that the Content Manager URI on both machines should have Machine A as first entry and Machine B, as the second entry. May I know which should I follow?

[sdf]

all instance should have the exact order of URIs

here's a link from IBM that can help you understand configuring URIs

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21340821

cheers!

[DavidHull]

all instance should have the exact order of URIs

here's a link from IBM that can help you understand configuring URIs

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21340821

cheers!

=====
Hi sdf.
The way we did it (we have a primary CM and a backup).

We simply decided which one was going to be our 'primary' and that one was entered first in the "Content Manager URIs" list.

Whenever we stop the services and/or reboot the boxes, we always bring up our CM1 first.
Once we've confirmed that it is up and running, we bring up our primary DISP (01).
Once we've confirmed that that is running, we bring up CM2, as well as our DISP02 and DISP03 at the same time.

Make sense?
-D.

[sdf]

yes that make sense.