Technical

How to Refresh Planning Analytics Non Production Environment

Often we want to update an entire Planning Analytics environment. This post details the steps to completely overwrite the target (Development) with the contents of Production.

There are alternative ways of refreshing the Development server for Planning Analytics. These include:

  • Full Planning Analytics Backup and Restore
  • Copy just the TM1 data folder
  • Copy just the BI environment

The most important thing in all three methods is to backup both the source and targets before you do anything! Obviously this is a guide only and you should review it and adjust it for your own situation.

If you have any corrections or tips, please let us know!

Full Planning Analytics Backup and Restore

This process describes how to update the entire Development environment of Planning Analytics from Production.

  1. On Production
    1. Open Architect
    2. Run the Process zInfocube.SaveAndArchive (this saves everything currently in memory to disk and creates a zip file of it as well)
    3. If your TM1 environment is large the CX Manager may fail to stop TM1 during the backup. If this happens go to Windows Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services and Stop the “IBM Cognos Analytic Server – CXMD” service.
    4. Go back to Planning Analytics Manager
    5. Take a Full Planning Analytics backup from the CX Manager screen (this will be quite large and may take some time).
  2. On Development
    1. Open Architect
    2. Run the Process zInfocube.SaveAndArchive (this saves everything currently in memory to disk and creates a zip file of it as well)
    3. Login to Planning Analytics Manager
    4. If your TM1 environment is large the CX Manager may fail to stop TM1 during the backup. If this happens go to Windows Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services and Stop the “IBM Cognos Analytic Server – CXMD” service.
    5. Go back to Planning Analytics Manager
    6. Take a Full Planning Analytics backup from the CX Manager screen (this will be quite large and may take some time).
    7. Copy the backup file from Production to Development
    8. Restore the backup taken from Production onto the Development server

Copy the TM1 Data Folder Only

This process copies only the TM1 data and does not interact with BI at all. This will completely overwrite the TM1 environment in the target.

  1. On Production
    1. Open Architect
    2. Run the Process zInfocube.SaveAndArchive
  2. On Development
    1. Open Architect
    2. Run the Process zInfocube.SaveAndArchive
    3. Stop TM1 services
    4. Delete the TM1 data folder (“CXMD”)
    5. Copy the zip file from Production to Development
    6. Unzip the Production zip on Development into the place where the TM1 data folder (“CXMD”) was.
    7. Restart TM1 services
    8. Test access to TM1

Remember that this does not change anything to do BI. To update that as well, follow the BI update steps as well.

Copy the BI Environment Only

This process copies only the BI information from Production to Development and does not do anything with TM1. It will completely overwrite the BI environment in the target.

  1. On Production
    1. Logon to Cognos Connection
    2. Navigate to Cognos Administration > Configuration > Content Administration
    3. Create deployment archive (Export)
      1. Call it Servername Full BI Deployment YYYYMMDD
      2. Select the Entire Content Store
      3. Leave the New Archive selected
      4. Set the encryption password to be YYYYMMDD
      5. Finish
      6. Run Now and View run history to wait for it to complete (hitting Refresh)
    4. Copy deployment archive from Production to Development
  2. On Development
    1. Logon to Cognos Connection
    2. Navigate to Cognos Administration > Configuration > Content Administration
    3. Create deployment archive (Export)
      1. Call it Servername Full BI Deployment YYYYMMDD
      2. Select the Entire Content Store
      3. Leave the New Archive selected
      4. Set the encryption password to be YYYYMMDD
      5. Finish
      6. Run Now and View run history to wait for it to complete (hitting Refresh)
    4. Copy deployment archive from Production to Development
    5. Import the deployment from Production to Development

Remember that this does not change anything to do TM1. To update that as well, follow the TM1 update steps as well.

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John Vaughan

John Vaughan is a highly experienced Accountant and Consultant. He has experience in the pharmaceutical, FMCG, distribution, professional services, manufacturing and financial service industries. With over 25 years of commercial experience and 20 years working with the Cognos products, he...

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