Cognos Express Licensing

[cadams]

Anyone…

I need some help getting to the bottom of the IBM Cognos Licensing agreement for Cognos Express,
I have Cognos Express installed on a Single server install, completely standalone setup. I've created additional Instances of Cognos Servers (Services) i.e. I have CMDX plus a couple of others.

IBM support are stating that this is not supported as it breaks the licensing agreement.

The only information I can find on this is in the release notes.

I quote:

Release Notes
IBM Cognos Express
Version 9.5.0

IBM Cognos Express Does Not Support Additional Instances of TM1 Servers Other Than CXMD Server
Additional TM1® server instances, beyond the installed CXMD server, are not supported in the Manager console.
If you attempt to restart IBM ® Cognos ® Express ® from the Manager console (which restarts IBM Cognos Analytic Server as part of the process), the restart of ICAS will fail if new TM1 server instances have been created in addition to the CXMD server that is provided with IBM Cognos Express.

The title "Cognos Express Does Not Support Additional Instances of TM1 Servers Other Than CXMD Server" However, the text is referring to the admin console.

To further confuse matters, in the Express Installation and Configuration guide under the Xcelerator Operations Guide 9.5, I found :-

Xcelerator Operations Guide 9.5.0
Installing a Server to Run as a Windows Service ICASTo install a ICAS server to run as a Windows service, use the following command line format:
tm1sd.exe -install parameters

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocente ... ssues.html

Stating how to create additional servers.

I'm confused !!!!

Anyone have any clue ?

[declanr]

Licensing for IBM is strange in general but if they tell you something isn't allowed then no one here will be able to tell you otherwise... it is their product.

Plus it is generally known that Cognos Express means 1 instance with a max of 100 users; if you want to go beyond that you can either by multiple instance of express and install on multiple servers OR you buy TM1.

As for it telling you how to create new instances I will admit that seems a bit stupid but all IBM did when creating the Express documentation is take the TM1 docs and do a CTRL+H for the most part.


Sorry to not give you the answers you wanted but simply put if IBM say you aren't allowed to do something with their software, you aren't allowed to do it.

[David Usherwood]

Probably a good idea to read.the.contract your organisation signed when they bought the product from IBM.

[kpk]

Hi,

It is simple: you can ONLY run ONE instance of icas: the built in CXMD.
You can buy more than one production environments and/or non production environments.
BUT the name of each model will be the same (CXMD) and therefore you need to install them on separate servers.
(The location of your model and logging directory is also fixed, you can only change the backup directory.)

Read the latest legal license descriptions for 9.5 and 10.1 here:
http://www-03.ibm.com/software/sla/slad ... 230048B42F
http://www-03.ibm.com/software/sla/slad ... FF00372478

The cognos express manuals contains many misleading information about what you CAN do.
Sometimes you CAN do it, but NOT ALLOWED from legal point of view!
Reason: the Xcelerator manuals were created from the TM1 Enterprise manuals and not all of them were modified correctly.

Kind Regards,
Peter

[cadams]

Thanks, I've read through the legal stuff but still don't see where it explicitly says I can't create them, I see I cannot go over 100 users, I see I can't use replication technology, I can see I cannot install the software on multiple physical hosts, but nothing that says I can't create an additional service other than cmdx.

I'm still utilising only the available resources on the 1 machine, nd sill under 100 users.

Am I missing something ?

[tomok]

If you are looking for specific wording saying "you can't do X" then perhaps you are not going to find it. However, I think we've made it pretty clear that you are only allowed one instance of a TM1 server service per CX license. This is common knowledge amongst the TM1 community. If you don't believe us then call your IBM rep. That's who you should be asking in the first place. This message board has no connection with IBM whatsoever.

[cadams]

I'm an IBM reseller and service provider,and i cannot get a definitive answer from them.

If common knowledge you cannot create anything more than out of the box CMDX, I would have assumed it would be stated so, and not printed in the installation and config guide of how to create additional servers. I understand that Cognos could not be arsed to rewrite the documentation for the product and instead opt to copy and paste badly.

But what I'm hearing is hearsay that you can't do it, I'm trying to make life easier for customers to manage their installation, but don't want to be breaking licence agreement by doing so.

I've tried taking to IBM but to no avail, I was hoping that someone here may have created more and wondered the same.

[kpk]

Here is the IBM answer:
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.w ... wg21425423

[cadams]

Thanks Peter,

I think this confirms that no-one can tell me, that by creating additional services on a Cognos express server that I am breaking the license agreement.

I will continue to question IBM.

[hardstep]

You can only have one CXMD instance running.
But via Cognos insight you an create and deploy any number of projects, so in theory you can create multiple instances.