Restoring the entire Metrics database and PowerCube

The Metrics database contains the raw data that is used to generate the PowerCube. Backing up the Metrics database on a regular basis ensures that you can rebuild the PowerCube in the event of a failure.

Before you begin

If you plan to restore the PowerCube on a staging server before copying to your product server, begin by installing Cognos® Business Intelligence on the staging server. Best practice is to install and configure the staging server just like the production server; at a minimum the staging server requires the customized version of Cognos® Business Intelligence that you installed on the production server, and access to the LDAP directory where the Cognos® administrator account resides.

About this task

When you restore the Metrics database, you must rebuild the PowerCube to make sure it contains all of the same data. You can restore the entire Metrics database in a single operation, and then rebuild the entire PowerCube in another single operation. If the Metrics database is large and your space for restoring the database and rebuilding the PowerCube is limited, you can complete the process incrementally by restoring subsets of data and rebuilding the PowerCube to add each additional set of data. For more information, see Restoring the Metrics database and PowerCube incrementally. To minimize the impact on your users, restore the PowerCube to a staging server and then copy the completed PowerCube to the production server where IBM® Cognos® Transformer is installed.

If the database is large, it can take a long time to restore it and rebuild the PowerCube.

Procedure

To restore the Metrics database and rebuild the PowerCube, complete the following steps:
  1. Restore the entire Metrics database by following the instructions in the database product documentation.
  2. On the staging server, copy the Transformer_install_path/metricsmodel directory and its contents from the production server where IBM® Cognos® Transformer is installed.

    This is the directory containing saved PowerCube model files that specify how the PowerCube is built; it is the cognos.transformer.install.path property specified in the cognos-setup.properties file.

  3. On the staging server, rebuild the PowerCube from the restored Metrics database:
    1. Navigate to the Transformer_install_path/metricsmodel directory.

      The Transformer_install_path is the value of the cognos.transformer.install.path property specified in the cognos-setup.properties file.

    2. Run the build-all.sh|bat script.
  4. Move the rebuilt PowerCube to the production server by copying the following directories and their contents from the staging server to the production server:
    • Powercube_save_path

      Powercube_save_path is the directory containing saved PowerCube files; it is the cognos.cube.path property specified in the cognos-setup.properties file.

    • Transformer_install_path/metricsmodel

      Transformer_install_path is the value of the cognos.transformer.install.path property specified in the cognos-setup.properties file.