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.