Cognos 8/Series 7 Mixed Environment Advice

[rukus206]

Good Afternoon -

I'm in need of expert advice.  We are in the process of migrating from Series 7 to Cognos 8.2.  However, our users (and developers) who've been testing on the DEV server aren't fond of Analysis Studio since they've been used to PP 7.1 (we've explained to the users that AS is not an OLAP tool like PP).  So, we're evaluating two options:

1) Move forward with C8 implementation, using PP 7.4 cubes (this is what we're pushing for)
- Which components/services would we need to install/configure in order to make this happen?

2) Stay with the current PROD S7 until PP for C8 is released (we heard Oct '07, but who knows when that will be, so we're trying to steer users away from this option)
- Are there migration tools for a 7.1 to 7.4 upgrade?  Or is it more prudent to just do an incremental upgrade 7.2, 7.3, 7.4?

Also, we are evaluating Cognos Enterprise Planning for our users; however, this is not installed or configured yet.  How would this affect our decision?

Thanks in advance...
JR

[COGNOiSe administrator]

I'd recomend to stay with 7, but upgrade to 7.4. I believe you will have to go through 7.3 first, or recreate the reports manually. You need to make sure that your C8 env will be using same S7 security. Otherwise publishing to Cognos Connection will fail.

Planning should not affect your decision; however, plan for having it on a separate set of hardware.

[rukus206]

Thanks.  Our client decided to go with the C8/S7 hybrid approach, so we have two weeks to get that working.  Out of curiosity, why would you recommend installing Planning on a new box?

[COGNOiSe administrator]

Planing is a resource hog, especially in large installations. The more RAM/CPU you can throw at the server and the workstation, the better off you will be.

[SomeClown]

Plus, Planning is still on the cer4 rendition and 7.4 moves to cer5,  I believe.  Last time I tried to mix these on the same box, it did not end well.

[rukus206]

Got it.  Thanks for sharing your experince.  Cheers!