Reg Installation concern

[mincharug.shulft]

Hello,
Currently Cognos tm1 9.5.1 64 bit is running with 2 data models (databases) as a 2 services in the following environment:
Windows server 2003 Enterprise x64 edition SP2, 16GB of RAM
So
Now my client is asking me to install tm1 9.0 in the same machine running with 9.0 database .without disturbing the 951 data models .will it possible to do it or do we need an additional RAM for this?
Could you please help me out because it’s urgent and thanks for understanding.


Thanking you all.

[Alan Kirk]

Hello,
Currently Cognos tm1 9.5.1 64 bit is running with 2 data models (databases) as a 2 services in the following environment:
Windows server 2003 Enterprise x64 edition SP2, 16GB of RAM
So
Now my client is asking me to install tm1 9.0 in the same machine running with 9.0 database .without disturbing the 951 data models .will it possible to do it or do we need an additional RAM for this?
Could you please help me out because it’s urgent and thanks for understanding.

You can throw as much RAM as you want at it, you still can't run two different versions on the one machine; not in the same O/S session anyway. You haven't been able to do that since around version 8.0. You may be able to get away with it if you virtualise the physical box into effectively two Windows servers, but I'm not sure how well Win Server 2003 handles that or what extra licencing fees you'd need to pay and it's not a solution that you could do "urgently". Also, be careful that you aren't breaching your TM1 licence if you go down that path.

[mincharug.shulft]

Thanks for your valuable reply.
Still have doubt, whatever we are discussing is going to held in preproduction (not production).so already same configuration is running in my test server as we discussing above. And also in my windows 2003 server is running as a 64bit & 32-bit as well.

Finally according to my above explanation and would we need to increase the RAM size or not required? could you please kindly help.

[David Usherwood]

Actually, you _can_ run mixed versions, but not as services. You have to have the relevant versions's admin server running somewhere else, then point your foreground server over there.
Not a pretty sight, I agree, and you definitely need to watch your license compliance.
RAM size - depends on your model - of course.

[tomok]

Actually, you _can_ run mixed versions, but not as services. You have to have the relevant versions's admin server running somewhere else, then point your foreground server over there.

Not necessarily. It depends on how far apart the versions are and whether or not the registered DLLs are compatible. It may work and it may not. And we haven't even talked about TM1Web. The two versions are not compatible and you would have to "install" the 9.0 version of TM1Web, without using the installation program (creating your own AppPool, your own custom versions of directories and such). It would be a nightmare and something I would never do unless I was farting around on a laptop or personal machine.

[Alan Kirk]

Actually, you _can_ run mixed versions, but not as services. You have to have the relevant versions's admin server running somewhere else, then point your foreground server over there.
Not a pretty sight, I agree, and you definitely need to watch your license compliance.
RAM size - depends on your model - of course.

Quite right, I should have been clearer.

you still can't run two different versions reliably on the one machine

The last time we got it to work properly was with 7.1.4 and 8.0. The last time I tried it at all was with, IIRC, 8.2.12 and 9.1 (in a test environment, not a live one obviously and the only reason that we did it at all was a shortage of boxes) from which we'd start to get all sorts of odd little idiopathic crashes, hangs and other odd behaviour creeping in at random times. I don't doubt that Tomok is right about this arising from .dll conflicts; it seems the most logical cause of the problems.

You'd also need to point-blank ignore the bit in the installation guide which reads, and I quote,

Upgrading to TM1 9.5.2 from version 9.0.x or 9.1.x requires a full manual uninstall, and then a full installation of 9.5.2.

Which means that the amount of support that you'd get from IBM with such a setup, even leaving aside the fact that 9.0 itself is no longer even on Service Request support, is as close to zero as makes no odds.

Consequently IMHO a responsible consultant wouldn't even go down the path of contemplating lumbering a dual install onto a client in a production environment (even if they've asked for it). They would instead just indicate to the client that the software doesn't support it (which the documentation is fairly unambiguous about), and that the client should bite the bullet and run a standard and common version. It means fewer potential problems for the client further down the track, problems which, if and/or when they occur, I'm betting that there will be zero chance of rectifying adequately.

In short, I agree entirely with Tomok's succinct summary of the situation in his last sentence.

[David Usherwood]

Interesting to find myself taking a position diametrically opposed to not one, but two, fellow gurus.
But first... I do agree (and already implied) that it wasn't a tremendous idea (and thus not for production, though I didn't say that explicitly - I noticed the OP mentioned 'preproduction', whatever that means - maybe UAT?).
But... it can be done, and doesn't work that badly. The key is to use the 'copy bin' approach ie do a full install on another box, then move the bin directory to the target machine. Then run one foreground server using one version's TM1S.EXE and the other using the other. You then need to run the admin server somewhere else as mentioned earlier. I have found that to be usable for development/testing/support - after all, clients have different versions and do you want to have one physical box per version? Yes, of course, the VM approach can deal with this but you will drain performance if you run several at once compared to a physical box.
You wouldn't get TM1Web working this way, of course, but straightforward Perspectives/Server works well enough. I use the multiple bin setup for Perspectives regularly as I need to support multiple versions and doing it with the server is a logical extension.
(Hunkers down in and waits for fiery response ...)

[Alan Kirk]

David,

No fiery response here, always up for a good clean debate.

Interesting to find myself taking a position diametrically opposed to not one, but two, fellow gurus.
But first... I do agree (and already implied) that it wasn't a tremendous idea (and thus not for production, though I didn't say that explicitly - I noticed the OP mentioned 'preproduction', whatever that means - maybe UAT?).

I noticed that part and wasn't clear on it either. It could well mean that they're intending to compare values from the old version to the 9.5.2 version before migrating. I still think that it's a dangerous path to go down because one of the idiopathic eccentricities that I came across in the Great 8.2.12 / 9.1 On The Same Machine Debacle was that some rules calculated values were coming up incorrectly on random occasions. It wasn't something that I could nail down consistently and I'm obviously not asserting that it will be an issue in ALL version mixes, but after a couple of weeks of that it certainly made me edgy enough not to try that again.

When I did the upgrade from 8.2.12 to 9.0 I made sure that I had them running on separate machines, comparing the values on the 9.0 server through my local client against the values in the old 8.2.12 server running on the client for that version on a Citrix box. Frankly with the earlier experience I'd never again trust doing side by side comparisons of two versions running on the one box, but clearly your own mileage has varied on that point and I'm not going to discount the role of individual model calculations can play in that.

But... it can be done, and doesn't work that badly. The key is to use the 'copy bin' approach ie do a full install on another box, then move the bin directory to the target machine. Then run one foreground server using one version's TM1S.EXE and the other using the other. You then need to run the admin server somewhere else as mentioned earlier. I have found that to be usable for development/testing/support - after all, clients have different versions and do you want to have one physical box per version? Yes, of course, the VM approach can deal with this but you will drain performance if you run several at once compared to a physical box.

True, but performance is less of an issue if it is a UAT box. In an ideal world a UAT box would be an exact replication of the proposed production server but there aren't many places which can justify that level of expense. So a multiple VM approach would probably be OK for a Dev -> QA -> UAT stage (if that's what the OP's proposal is), but you'd want the Prod box to be separate from that so that it could have as much as possible available to it in the way of resources. You'd probably want to avoid splitting the production environment into two VMs with different versions for that reason... but as I said I for one certainly wouldn't want to be running two production versions on the same box either.

You wouldn't get TM1Web working this way, of course, but straightforward Perspectives/Server works well enough. I use the multiple bin setup for Perspectives regularly as I need to support multiple versions and doing it with the server is a logical extension.
(Hunkers down in and waits for fiery response ...)

Always good to hear of different experiences.

[Gabor]

Interesting finding ... the confused rules. I never experienced this since early TM1 server 6 times.
Currently we are running mixed 9.0 to 9.5.2 / x86 + x64 / service + foreground on testmachine, including intensive usage because very different models are covered.
# installed services for TM1 server is > 10, multiple test licenses are available, so usually about 2-3 services are running in parallel.

At least on our machine no issues on TM1 server side, as long as
- the unique admin service is based on highest x64 version (running on same machine. (I moved to 9.5.2 HF4 yesterday)
- UseSSl=F is set in newer TM1 cfg's because 9.0 does not support
- PortNumber in cfg is unique for each active server

Nevertheless, there is one exception, TM1 Web on same machine was sensitive and needed to have older versions to be stopped or shared via another admin server on separate machine. (would be happy if someone can tell me how to solve this)

I usually copy the previous bin folder into new versioned folder like TM1S9510001815416 (for 9.5.1 HF18) and run the next versions install routine. Hotfixes would be a simply copy of course.
The named folder still exists and will work after next installation, even when prior 9.5 versions needed to be uninstalled first.

The service on such a versioned folder can be easily created/deleted by running a small script using TM1 executables.

Gabor

Example, assuming ...
- script folder residing parallel to bin folder
- cfg residing in config subfolder under bin
first 3 lines in cmd are always the same:
cd /d ..
set TM1Path=%CD%\bin
cd /D %TM1Path%
plus:
A) ServiceCreate.cmd
Set ServiceName=test951HF18
@echo You want to install the TM1-Server as Service?
@pause
@tm1sd.exe -install -n%ServiceName% -z"%TM1Path%\config"
@PAUSE

B) ServiceRemove.cmd
Set ServiceName=test951HF18
@echo you want to remove the %ServiceName% Service?
@pause
tm1sd.exe -remove -n%ServiceName%
@PAUSE

C) AdminCreate.cmd
@echo You want to install the TM1-Admin-Server as an Service?
@pause
tm1admsd.exe -install
@PAUSE

D) AdminRemove.cmd
@echo You want to install the TM1-Admin-Server as an Service?
@pause
tm1admsd.exe -remove
@PAUSE

[mincharug.shulft]

Hello Gabor,
Its really helpfull for me and i would say thanks to you.

and some more quaries i have :
1) PortNumber in cfg is unique for each active server mean
Actually in my cfg file the port number is 1941(cognos951) and when i install 90 then i should give 1942 or 1951 only.
2) do i need to increase RAM or do i need to add one more drive for this? because since we have here 8GB RAM running and two datamodels running parally .
and one datamodel size is-17GB & another datamodel size is:11GB

Thanks in advance.

[Alan Kirk]

Interesting finding ... the confused rules. I never experienced this since early TM1 server 6 times.

More interesting to me that you haven't. But as I said, I can't swear hand-on-heart that it was the multiple versions that were causing it, or that it wasn't some peculiarity with that version mix and/or with our model. I can say that I didn't experience it again once I split the 9.1 version off onto its own box, I didn't again experience it.