Planning 8.2 & Cognos 8 BI Integration [Advice on install apporach]

[praveennb]

[Long Post]   ;D

I have 4 servers
1)Planning 8.2    (New Server)
2)Cognos BI 8.2 (Existing server)
3)SQL Server  (Existing server - For Content Database)
4)Series 7 Access Manager, Sun directory server

Currently i'm running Cognos 8.2 BI with Content Manager, Application Tier, Gateway  components installed on ONE SINGLE server
the content manager is configured to use the SQL Server database named CM, and series 7 is being used for security.
I have extensively customized the system.xml file to add user groups, hide UI, etc.. this setup is working fine without any problems.

Please advice me on the below.

I need to achieve this.

users will login to single cognos connection(Preferably to Cognos 8 BI Server) this portal will display both BI and Planning Contributor 8.2  application and new integrated features form planning 8.2

How to i configure my servers to achieve the above.

is it possible to setup the servers like below

On the BI server 
1. install the Planning 8.2 Gateway And Content Manager from Planning 8.2  CD (Which is same as BI Content Manager Install)
2. add Planning 8.2 Dispatcher URI this will pointing to the Planning Server.
3. Change the Password for Certificate Authority settings to be the same as Planning Server

On the planning Server
0. install all Planning 8.2 components excluding Content Manager &  Planning 8.2 Gateway with IIS configured
1. Change URI for Content Manager this will point to the BI Content Manager
2. Change the Gateway to BI Server
3. Create a New planning Store & Notification store database and add them to configuration
4. Change the Password for Certificate Authority settings to the same as BI

I have tried the above and its no surprise it failed!, to start off with the BI worked fine the Planning 8.2 Server failed start
with some weired error message Try catch failure!! , when i did individual test in the configuration manager on planning 8.2 server
it passed all the tests.

On another test server i have installed planning 8.2, BI 8.2 all into one server and all components into single folder it works fine.

Please help, thanks. i am missing something or the approach taken is wrong  :P

Thanks for your time.

[SomeClown]

- Don't reinstall Content Manager on Planning - only need one and you have it on BI - you can mess up the crypto keys by doing this
- Create separate Planning Content Store (database) and use that so you avoid potential issues with existing BI CM
- Be sure to install .236 BI Updater (ask Cognos Support for it) to the BI server (and gateway if on different machine) - this is probably your error
- Don't need to modify the dispatcher URI as the Planning dispatcher gets picked up once you point to the content manager
- If you add a new notification store, add it back to BI as it needs to be the same in both places - otherwise point notification on planning server to the existing BI content store
- Planning install will install BI services to your planning server - be sure to turn off unneeded BI services (basically everything except Dispatcher and anything called Planning * ...) otherwise report processing will happen on your planning server and during job runs, will likely fail due to resource contention

Your approach should be fine - just some details to amend.

[praveennb]

Hi SomeClown , Thanks

I have created 3 databases in SQL Server

1. Content
2. PlanningStore
3. Notification

with some changes to the server setup

On the BI server
1. i have added Notification database in cognos config.
2. I didn't install any planning 8.2 components, not even the gateway

then start the BI Server and on to planning server

On the planning server
1. I have installed all the Planning components, except for content manager
2. Changed the cognos config for content URI, CSK Setting to local stored =False,Password for Certificate Authority same as BI
    and added URI for BI dispatcher. ( I need to do this cause i got error messages like content manager could not located or CSK Key could not be generated)
3. added  Notification database in cognos config.
4. Created a new resource for cognos planning data access which points to the content database
I didnt want Planning data to be written into the content database. left with no choice for now.

On both servers i have disabled cognos firewall for the time being

This worked fine i could log on to both Planning and BI sever and login to the cognos connection.
but when i opened the contributor admin from the planning server, it says "Planning tables are not found" this may be due to planning server not creating the tables.

on which server do i install the planningstore database resource.?
on the planning server i created a new database resource under data access cognos planning and pointed this to the content database , if i were to point this to the PlanningStore database  the planning service fails to start.!!, (error message was Content manager could not be located) does this mean my planning server is unable to connect to the content manager which is installed on the BI server box.?



I will check with cognos support on the BI updater, thanks again for making things more clear.

[SomeClown]

Planning data store goes on the planning server  where you mention

If you plan to share the gateway, then planning gateway needs to be installed along with BI gateway.

make sure you create a database account that is used to access the service - good idea would be to have a separate database account.

Once it's set up.  stop both servers (all Cognos services), then start BI first to get Content Manager running, then start Planning server.