Configuring Cognos 8 for a Third-Party Application Server

Cognos 8 installs and uses Tomcat as the application server by default. You can choose to run Cognos 8 within one of the following supported third-party application servers instead:

BEA WebLogic Server
IBM WebSphere Application Server
Oracle Application Server
Red Hat JBoss
SAP Web Application Server

To ensure your product works properly, apply all required operating system patches and use only the versions of third-party software that are supported for a Cognos product.

To review an up-to-date list of environments supported by Cognos products, such as operating systems, patches, browsers, Web servers, directory servers, database servers, and application servers:

Visit the Cognos Global Customer Services Web site (http://support.cognos.com).
It is important to note that the Linux operating system is available in a number of distributions and supports a number of hardware platforms. Ensure that the operating system and hardware combination you are using is a supported combination.
When you install Cognos 8 on Linux, Framework Manager is not installed. The BMTScriptPlayer is a command-line utility that interfaces with the Framework Manager engine, allowing you to run Framework Manager action logs. Because Framework Manager is not installed, the BMTScriptPlayer will not work.

You can choose to run the Cognos Servlet Gateway on a supported application server instead of using a Web server . When using the servlet gateway, your environment does not require a Web server. The application server and the servlet gateway replace the functions provided by the Web server and other Cognos gateways. Cognos 8 must be installed and running prior to configuring and deploying the Cognos Servlet Gateway.

If you are upgrading from ReportNet to Cognos 8, see Upgrade to Cognos 8 in an Application Server Environment.

If you are upgrading from Metrics Manager to Cognos 8 Metrics Manager, see Upgrade from Metrics Manager to Cognos 8 in an Application Server Environment.

For information about configuring a multi-server distributed installation of Cognos 8 in an application server environment, contact Cognos support (http://support.cognos.com).

To set up Cognos 8 to run on your application server, do the following:

	Create a separate JVM instance, if necessary.
	Check that Cognos components are properly set up.
	Back up any existing Cognos data and encryption keys, if required.
	Set environment variables.
	Update the Java environment.
	Configure Cognos components to run within the application server.
	Identifying the JDK for WebLogic 9 on AIX, if necessary.
	Change the application server startup script, if necessary.
	Change the Cognos dispatcher properties file, if using Oracle Application Server.
	Configure application server properties and deploy Cognos 8.
	Enable SSL, if required.
	Configure the web server.
	Unregister dispatchers that are no longer used.
	Import any backed up content store data.

After setting up Cognos 8 to run on your application server, you can perform some additional configuration tasks to customize the behavior of Cognos components to better suit your reporting environment . You can also test your configuration .

Tip: Do not use install paths that contain spaces for the application server or Cognos 8. Spaces interfere with the internal scripts and command parameters. If you must use an install path that includes spaces, use the 8.3 DOS naming convention when referring to these locations.