IBM Connections 4.0 Installation Details in a Spreadsheet Form

Last Edited Nov 7, 2012 now includes some more TDI ports which i left off and also fixed a typo in DB2 port number which should be 50000 among other items.

Since working on IBM Connections 4.0 installations I found the provided document lacking in a specific area...Cognos.

This can be very important for everyone doing these installs the first time. You need to track a lot of information and it also helps provide documentation for the next team.

So if you want my spreadsheet, it is here which links to my Download Page from the menu on top.

The IBM documentation comes as a wiki page you can see here.

I have added some fields or entries as I found them missing or of help during my travels.

Let me know if you need it an another format or if you add anything I should include please let me know.

Cognos Integration for IBM Connections hints #2

IMPORTANT: your cognos directory where you have the cognos transformer and BI files as well as your connections install files with the cognos parts should be in a directory with NO spaces in the name. just another hint.

Another one of the problems I faced when building it was the cognos-setup.bat would run properly, but then the cognos-configure.bat would error out.

EVERYTHING you do for the Cognos installation is built around the cognos-setup.properties file. Which if you saw my previous post, you will already gather some understanding.

The docs outline how you need to set up a new instance under Websphere. But again, not being a Cognos person initially, some defaults or expectations were unknown.

Luckily I reread the docs and also found this page from the infocenter to IBM Connections 2.5, emphasis is mine.

If you are installing IBM Cognos BI and IBM Lotus Connections to the same IBM WebSphere Application Server, you must create an additional profile for one of the applications. Do not use the same profile for both applications.

Since I was building everything on one box, I needed to make sure my cognos-setup.properties file was properly setup.

First, as the documentation shows, you do this:

IBM AIX, Linux:
manageprofiles.sh -create -templatepath WAS_install_root/profileTemplates/default -adminUserName

         Microsoft Windows:
         manageprofiles.bat -create -templatepath WAS_install_root\profileTemplates\default -         adminUserName
 This will create a new application profile, lets say Appsrv02.

You need to know more details so go look here(this is my machine, but you should be able to follow the syntax):
D:\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\profiles\AppSrv02\logs\AboutthisProfile.txt

You will see details that look like this:

Application server environment to create: Application server
Location: D:\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\profiles\AppSrv02
Disk space required: 200 MB
Profile name: AppSrv02
Make this profile the default: False
Node name: conexNode02
Host name: conex
Enable administrative security (recommended): False
Administrative console port: 9062
Administrative console secure port: 9045
HTTP transport port: 9081
HTTPS transport port: 9444
Bootstrap port: 2811
SOAP connector port: 8881
Run application server as a service: False
Create a Web server definition: False
Performance tuning setting: Standard

Now that we have these details, you can then insert them into the cognos-setup.properties file here:

# Default profile is located here: /profiles/
# Example: /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/AppSrv01 uses the profile name AppSrv01
was.profile.name=AppSrv02

And also here:

# The WebSphere Application Server node where the Cognos BI server instance will be created (this must be an existing node)
# The node name can be found in /profiles//logs/AboutThisProfile.txt
cognos.was.node.name=conexNode02

 Once you do this, you should be on your way.

IBM Cognos and IBM Connections 4 Install hint #1

After my new found love in IBM Cognos, I decided to take a stab at getting it configured.

Not such a difficult task, yet, one or two things really killed me, so if you get these, here is some help.

Read the documentation, honestly, it helps.

BUT even documentation can not help you when your brain is too tired to pay attention.

Once you get to the step about running the cognos-setup.bat file and editing the cognos-setup-properties file, you may experience this error when you review your cognos-setup.log file:

Using Cognos setup properties file: C:\Installs\conex4\IBM_Connections_Install\Cognos\CognosConfig\cognos-setup.properties
Performing validation check ...
JAR file(s) found in JDBC driver directory:
C:\Installs\conex4\IBM_Connections_Install\Cognos\CognosConfig\BI-Customization\JDBC
was.install.path: WebSphere Application Server exists
Checking existence of profile: AppSrv01
[AppSrv01]
Using profile: AppSrv01
cognos.was.node.name: Found node [betaboxNode01]
cognos.biserver.issetup: Will use issetup.exe to install Cognos BI Server
C:\Installs\conex4\Cognos 10.1.1\BI\winx64h\issetup.exe
cognos.transformer.issetup: Will use issetup.exe to install Cognos Transformer
C:\Installs\conex4\Cognos 10.1.1\bimodel_win32_10.1.1_ml\win32\issetup.exe
Using cognos.locale: EN
All properties provided for Cognos database
All properties provided for Metrics database
Failed to connect to Cognos content store DB. Error: [jcc][t4][2043][11550][3.63.75] Exception java.net.ConnectException: Error opening socket to server betabox.us.voicerite.com/192.168.x.x on port 446 with message: Connection refused: connect. ERRORCODE=-4499, SQLSTATE=08001
Failed to verify the JDBC connection to Cognos Content Store database. Please check the error message.

My good friend, Wannes Rams, a fellow Redbook Thought Leader, pointed out to me that port 446 is not what it should say, but 50000. Indeed, he was correct as most people know.

You need to make the .db.host lines in these 2 sections of the cognos-setup-properties file look like this with the :50000 at the end:

# Information for the Cognos Content Store database
# Supported database types:
#    DB Type    : Value
# ===========================
#    DB2        : db2
#    Oracle     : oracle
#    SQL Server : sqlserver
cognos.db.type=db2
# Format the cognos.db.host property as: host_name:port
cognos.db.host=servername.org.com:50000
cognos.db.name=COGNOS
cognos.db.user=lcuser
# Note: Password is stored in clear text; leave blank to supply at run time
cognos.db.password=yourpassword

# Information for the Metrics database
# Supported database types:
#    DB Type    : Value
# ===========================
#    DB2        : db2
#    Oracle     : oracle
#    SQL Server : sqlserver
metrics.db.type=db2
# Format the metrics.db.host property as: host_name:port
metrics.db.host=servername.org.com:50000
metrics.db.name=METRICS
# The local database name is used by the database client on the Transformer server to reference the Metrics database.
# For DB2, this is the Metrics database local catalog alias name.
# For Oracle, this is the Metrics database local TNS name.
# For SQL Server, this is the Metrics database instance name.
metrics.db.local.name=METRICS
metrics.db.user=lcuser
# Note: Password is stored in clear text; leave blank to supply at run time
metrics.db.password=yourpassword

A small but potentially time wasting thing that I hope has saved someone. 

Lotus Notes Traveler and Case Sensitivity Lookup Issue

Wondering if I missed a notes.ini setting.

Lotus Notes Traveler appears to only search in a case sensitive way when performing corporate lookups against a DA (names.nsf and otherlist.nsf).

I have set the duplicate lookups against email address and last name in the ntsconfig.xml.

However, when searching for someone where one of the 2 directories shows a discrepency between the cases, both references show up.

So a keith@company.com and a Keith@company.com would both show up instead of being seen as a duplicate.

I checked both indices and they are not set to index case sensitivity so I am wondering why the Android phones are not picking up the duplicate.

Connections 4.0 is Announced and Sharepoint is ...

Still not put together?

I don't usually link to articles, but in this case, I am making an exception.

If Sharepoint is on your radar, you may find this interesting reading. If you already have Sharepoint, you may want to give some feedback on the issues the author, Tony Byrne, has with Sharepoint.

http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/News/News-Analysis/SharePoint-2013-Is-it-a-product-or-a-platform-84513.aspx

Some highlights (my bold):

Use SharePoint as an out-of-box application whenever possible. We designed the new SharePoint UI to be clean, simple and fast and work great out-of-box. We encourage you not to modify it, which could add complexity, performance and upgradeability and to focus your energy on working with users and groups to understand how to use SharePoint to improve productivity and collaboration, and identifying and promoting best practices in your organization.

I believe that if you look more deeply past the UI, you'll discover that your colleagues really want polished applications that solve specific problems. The dearth of specific, elaborated applications in SharePoint has been its biggest Achilles heel (realstorygroup.com/Blog/2263-Three-options-for-social-enabling-SharePoint).Sure, SharePoint offers blogs, wikis, forums and status messages. But those are just services that need to be integrated and extended within some context to add real value.

I haven't (yet) seen that approach change in SharePoint 2013. The new version features a lot of snazzy new services, but you'll need someone else to turn them into applications.

Could it be that Redmond is not in agreement on what their product does? They are not alone in this regard, but given how so many claim Sharepoint can do so much, the reality may not be as everyone believes.