Update to TM1 9.5

[Alan Kirk]

For anyone who's unaware, there's supposedly been an updated release of version 9.5.

An updated version of TM1 9.5 is now available from IBM. This updated release contains key performance improvements and defect corrections. For details on these product corrections, please refer to the following APARs:
PM08113, PM08114, PM08115, PM08116, PM08117, PM08118

We encourage customers who obtained TM1 9.5 prior to February 25, 2010 replace it with the updated version. The product can be downloaded from Passport Advantage.

It's unclear from this page exactly what we're dealing with here. Is it 9.5 FP1? If so, why isn't it on the Fix Central page? Is it a replacement installation for 9.5? If so why, when you finally reach the software downloads page via "Passport Advantage" (which remains as painful and tortuous a task as any on an IBM web site), do you find files which are still dated 1 December 2009? And if it is a replacement for those (and that the replacement packs simply haven't been put up yet), does that mean that there will be two different install packages floating around which install two different versions with the same version number? (It's pretty easy, no really, it is! If you make a change to a version, you increment the number to the far right of the decimal. Thus 9.5 becomes 9.5.1 upon the first change, the next change is 9.5.2, the one after is 9.5.3, that way everyone knows exactly which version is which and you don't end up with names like 9.5 FP1 HF98-06A.)

I've raised a request with IBM support for further details.

[Alan Kirk]

OK, thanks to local support, I've been able to get the information.

It's not actually regarded as being a new release or version, though it does have a new version number. Kinda sorta. Unfortunately one of the cute things about 9.5 is that unlike past versions, clicking on Help / About in Server Explorer won't give you the version, build, etc number, it just gives you a splash screen. (Yay for "branding".) From that, you have no way of knowing which version you're on. As far as I can tell you need to find the .exe file and right click on it to check its properties. In this case the original release of 9.5 was 9.5.0.65077. The new one is 9.5.100.2380 as shown below:

VersionComparison.jpg (58.26 KiB) Viewed 8196 times

The new version has in fact replaced the previous one on the downloads page in Passport Advantage. As far as I can tell the original release is no longer downloadable. This is slightly misleading because when you first hit the downloads page you'll still see the package as:

IBM Cognos TM1 V9.5.0 Windows Multilingual eAssembly(CRA7IML)
Size 9 files (2429mb)
Date posted 01-Dec-2009

(My emphasis.)

However if you drill into the individual downloads you'll find:

IBM Cognos TM1 32-Bit V9.5.0 Windows Multilingual(CZD7EML) - View details
Size 516mb
Date posted 04-Mar-2010

Or, for the 64 bit guys:

IBM Cognos TM1 64-Bit V9.5.0 Windows Multilingual(CZD7FML) - View details
Size 510mb
Date posted 04-Mar-2010

Enjoy.

[jstrygner]

Alan,

After seeing your post I tried to check the build version of new downloaded and installed 9.5.
In the properties window of tm1sd.exe I have the same 9.5.100.2380 build.

But when I run one of my TM1 servers as an application I saw this:

tm195build.JPG (53.24 KiB) Viewed 7862 times

This maybe is a reason why they still call it 9.5.0, but of course I agree this version should be somehow differed from the older one (e.g. with the FP1 suffix).

Regards,

[dkleist]

Is it using the new IBM installer technology? (I haven't looked yet) If so, then it's likely meant as an FP release. My guess is that it was too much work to figure out how to get the new installer technology integrated on top of the old platform, so they just re-released it as a brand-new install. Similar story for the BI 8.4.1 release.

[dubs]

We have installed it, it ran as a fresh reinstall, we removed 9.5 first and installed 9.5.1

The 9.5 client is not compatible with the 9.5.1 server as you would expect

it was available on our passport advantage page.

we installed it to fix an error we get with 9.5 but it hasn't fixed it (about to start a new post about this)

hope this helps

[Steve Vincent]

We have installed it, it ran as a fresh reinstall, we removed 9.5 first and installed 9.5.1

The 9.5 client is not compatible with the 9.5.1 server as you would expect

it was available on our passport advantage page.

we installed it to fix an error we get with 9.5 but it hasn't fixed it (about to start a new post about this)

hope this helps

9.5 client WILL work on a 9.5.1 server. The only reason it won't is if your server has config settings stipulating the min/max client versions it will allow. Have just tested this myself on my dev machine. Also, i installed 9.5.1 over the top of 9.5 and it's not had any complaints. Previous installs would force you to remove the older version, this one seems more flexible. Whether that is a good or bad thing remains to be seen...

[dubs]

Hi Steve,

You are right, we did some further tests here and found the same thing, didn't remember to update the post.

Cheers

[Steve Vincent]

word of warning tho. it did let me install 9.5.1 over 9.5 but i had an issue with running TIs afterwards. The pop up box that tells you what it is doing, how many rows of data its processed and containing the "cancel" button was completely empty. i removed TM1 and did a fresh client install of 9.5.1 and it worked fine afterwards.