INSTALLATION PROCESS FOR IBM G0! DASHBOARD MULTI-SERVER INSTALL

System Specifications
Gateway Server (GS)
Dispatcher installed on a different server with IBM Cognos 8v4 application tier (MAINServer)

Installation Process
Get IBM Cognos 8v4 BI correctly configured and running on MAINServer (Reference Cognos Configuration User Guide)
Install IBM Go! Dashboard component on GS

Navigate to the location where the IBM Cognos 8 Go! Dashboard files are located and double-click issetup.exe file.
Follow the direction in the installation wizard to complete the installation.
Configure IBM Go! Dashboard
Set Java home
Open Command line, and navigate to Cognos_install_dir\dashboard\bin
Type set JAVA_HOME=path_to_Java_installationand press Enter

Install IBM Go Dashboard service

Configure Dashboard.properties file
Navigate to Cognos_install_dir\war\dashboard using Windows Explorer
Change URLs for dispatcher, Gateway and content.
In command line, navigate to Cognos_install_dir\war\dashboard
Type build.bat and press Enter

To start IBM Go Dashboard Service navigate back to Cognos_install_dir\dashboard\bin
Type net start IBMCognos8GoDashboard and press Enter

Configure Tomcat
Change Tomcat port to 9301 (or any other port) from the default port. (Cognos 8 BI uses Tomcat4, configured to use connection port 8080 by default, which is why to avoid conflict we need to change Tomcat6 connection port)
Navigate to Cognos_install_dir\tomcat6.0.14\conf using Windows Explorer
Open Server.xml in a text editor
Locate the following piece of code:
Change Connector port from 8080 to 9301
Start Tomcat6 service.
Using Command line, navigate to Cognos_install_dir\tomcat6.0.14\bin
Type startup.bat and press Enter.

After the Tomcat service is started successfully, using Internet Explorer navigate to http://localhost:9301/ to start Tomcat Administration.

Deploy .war file which we created using build.bat and dashboard.properties file.
Click Tomcat Manager from Tomcat Administration
When prompted for credentials, enter:
Username: system
Password: manager
Scroll down the page to the Deploy section.

Enter values for the properties:
Context Path: This value should be the same as the one specified in the dashboard.properties file XML Configuration file URL: Path to tomcat-context.xml file
WAR or Directory URL: Path to the dashboard.war file

Test Go! Dashboard
Navigate to http://MachineName:Port/cognos/dashboard/html

The above screen is what you should expect to see if everything has been configured correctly.

Even though IBM Go! Dashboard recognizes Cognos 8 BI, and displays the content within the Content Store, Cognos 8 BI is still unaware of the existence of Go! Dashboard. We will need to install Go! Dashboards on MAINServer too. Since Go! Dashboard is already configured with the dispatcher it’s supposed to use, we only need to install Go! Dashboard on MAINServer with no need to configure it.

Install IBM Go! Dashboard component on MAINServer
Navigate to the location where the IBM Cognos 8 Go! Dashboard files are located and double-click issetup.exe file.
Follow the direction in the installation wizard to complete the installation.
No need to configure any components or start any services on this server.

Now we have provided a link between the BI server and Go! Dashboard server.
Another issue that might arrive when running Go! Dashboards is multiple logins to GO Dashboard even though the user is already logged into Cognos Connections.
To resolve this issue, we’re going to need to adjust the cache settings in Cognos Configuration.

Open IBM Cognos 8 Configuration
From the Actions menu, select Edit Global Configuration

Click General tab
Under Cookie Settings set the path to “/” (without quotation marks) as shown below

Restart IBM Cognos 8 and IBM Go! Dashboard services

Note:

If Go! Dashboard Service Pack 1 is installed on the server, Dashboard.properties file needs to be updated. Variables will be used for the name of the context_root and dist_path in the file and they should be changed to hard-coded names.
Since this is the first generation of Go! Dashboard, if there is a problem during installation, uninstallation and re-installation is the fastest solution. Uninstallation will require deleting the tomcat6.0.14 folder manually. This is done because Tomcat keeps the configurations and those need to be deleted.