IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence 8.4 Fix Pack 2

October 30, 2009: The Cognos 8 BI 8.4 FP2 Linux64-zSeries download was replaced to correct an install issue.

IBM Cognos Metrics Manager, IBM Cognos 8 Go! Mobile and IBM Cognos 8 Go! Search are not updated in Fix Pack 2, however, Fix Pack 1 updates for IBM Cognos 8 Go! products are included as part of Fix Pack 2 for your convenience.

This Fix Pack provides important product corrections for IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence and IBM Cognos 8 Go! version 8.4. It includes the server software and reporting capabilities of Cognos 8 BI and the associated modeling components. Updates to selected related Go! products are provided as well.
This Fix Pack has gone through a targeted regression test suite aimed at validating the roll up of escalated defect resolutions that have gone into the build kits.

Issues corrected: Fix List

Cognos 8 BI 8.4 FP2 Readme

Cognos 8 Go! Dashboard 8.4 FP2 Readme

This Fix Pack is intended to be used with any release of Cognos 8 BI 8.4 or Cognos 8 Go! 8.4.

This Fix Pack can only be installed over an existing installation of Cognos 8 BI or Cognos 8 Go! 8.4. Cognos 8 BI 8.4 Fix Pack downloads should be installed before Cognos 8 Go! 8.4 Fix Pack downloads.
This section provides additional information about installing this product. Review the information in this section before you begin your installation.

Applying Fix Packs

Keep your Cognos 8 BI environment running at the latest Fix Pack level to ensure problem-free operation. To install a Fix Pack successfully, perform all of the necessary tasks.

Note 1: To install a Fix Pack, you must first download and uncompress the Fix Pack. If you already have Cognos 8 BI products installed in the selected path, you must also stop any Cognos services.

Note 2: To determine component versions in the Fix Pack before install, you must first download, uncompress and either unpack the tar file to disk or read the table of contents of the tar file. Packaged components are in the "zipfiles" directory. This can be done using Winzip on a Windows system or a combination of the gunzip and tar commands on UNIX as described below.

To install a Fix Pack

1. Check Fix Pack prerequisites.

2. Download the appropriate .tar.gz Fix Pack file using the links in the Download Package section.
You can either choose to access the FTP folder directly or you can use a Java™ applet called Download Director to download the files.
Note: Some browsers may change the downloaded file type from .tar.gz. to a file type not recognized by the operating system. To correct this, change the file type back to .tar.gz or use Download Director to avoid this issue.

3. Uncompress the Fix Pack:
Fix Pack installation images on the FTP site are in compressed format. Before you can install a Fix Pack, you must uncompress the Fix Pack installation image in a temporary directory

3.1 Uncompressing Fix Packs (Linux® and UNIX®)
Copy the Fix Pack to the the appropriate UNIX operating system or Linux operating system.
To uncompress a Fix Pack installation image, perform the following steps:
3.1.1 Change to the directory where you have downloaded the Fix Pack installation image .
3.1.2 Use the GNU "gunzip" command to uncompress and the GNU "Tar" command to extract the file.
3.1.3 Enter the following command to uncompress the file:
gunzip filename.tar.gz | tar xvf –
where filename is the fix pack you are installing.

Note: GNU Zip can be obtained from from www.gzip.org and GNU tar can be obtained from www.gnu.org/software/tar .

3.2 Uncompress Fix Packs (Windows®)
To uncompress a Fix Pack installation image, perform the following steps:
3.2.1 Change to the directory where you have downloaded the Fix Pack installation image.
3.2.2 Double click the self-extracting .tar.gz file.
The WinZip Self Extractor window opens.
3.2.3 Select the option "use folder names"
3.2.4 Click Unzip.
All files are unzipped to the specified folder.

4. Install the Fix Pack.

4.1 Launch the issetup application found under the <operating system> folder
For example under Microsoft® Windows® XP, the issetup application is issetup.exe and the <operating system> folder is win32.

4.2 Follow the install wizard steps.
The install will update components (as necessary) in the install location indicated.

For more information about Cognos 8 BI installation, consult chapter 6 of the IBM Cognos 8 Installation and Configuration Guide.
For more information about Cognos 8 Go! installation information, see the appropriate install instructions in the Information Center link below.

It is recommended that you install the latest Fix Pack available.