Cleanly Stopping and Starting Business Objects Servers
I really cannot explain why it is that I have NEVER seen any documentation that advises Business Objects XI administrators on how to stop and start Business Objects properly. For those of us running part of our business on BO XI we are very concerned about minimizing errors for users and scheduled jobs while we are restarting Business Objects.
The Cleanest Method to Stop a Business Objects Environment
I have discussed this topic with my senior engineers and the following is based on the input I received from them and from my own experience and knowledge. I will label optional steps that will make your stop and start as graceful as possible; these are optional, but they are the best method to follow if you have the time to do so. Also when following the steps make certain that the step is complete and the server is completely stopped/started before proceeding to the next step. Additionally if you have a clustered environment, and you should if at all possible, then you can stop all servers of the same kind in any order or even simultaneously.:
- Please first make note of any pre-existing disabled servers to be sure that you do not enable them mistakenly later on. Screenshots are useful and fast, just be sure to save them.
- Shutdown your web/application layer. This will stop your users from launching new jobs and from getting strange errors as you are in the midst of your shutdown. You could just disable a proxy server (if you use one to cut off the access, but (Graceful Option) you may want to completely flush the system by completely stopping the web server.
- (Graceful Option) Through the Central Management Console (CMC) or through the Central Configuration Manager (CCM) Disable all BO servers except for the CMS, Input FRS, Output FRS, and Destination servers.
- (Graceful Option) Wait as long as reasonable/acceptable or until all user sessions/requests have cleared the disabled servers before proceeding to the next step. Usually 30 to 60 minutes is sufficient for any valid threads being processed.
- Shutdown the Event Servers (use CCM or CMC). This would stop any related scheduled jobs from launching.
- Shutdown all Job Servers (WebI, DeskI, Program…).
- Shutdown the Destination Servers.
- Shutdown all Report Servers (WebI, DeskI, Crystal…).
- Shutdown any other non-CMS Servers that are still up and running.
- Shutdown CMS. CMS should always be last. This is essential and it will make your CMS shutdown go much faster and more smoothly. It may also help reveal any problems that your CMS may be having (for example, if it won’t shutdown you’ll know it is not because of any other lingering servers in the cluster).
- With the CMS completely shutdown you are official and completely down.
The Cleanest Method to Start a Business Objects Environment
It is assumed that EVERYTHING is down prior to beginning these steps. If your environment is only partially down we strongly recommend that you first shut it down completely before attempting a start/restart. You want to have a clean environment so do yourself and your users this favor. When starting groups of the same kind of server you can start them one by one or simultaneously, jsut be sure that all are started before proceeding to the next step. (Graceful Option) If you disabled any servers prior to the shutdown (as part of a graceful shutdown) then you should enable them immediately after they have been started:
- Start the CMS servers. This will take a little while depending mostly on the number of objects in your environment.
- Start Destination Servers, Input FRS, and Output FRS.
- Start Event Servers. Also as a side note, please be aware that Event Servers must always be restarted following the restart of any CMS in the cluster.
- Start all Report Servers.
- Start all Job Servers.
- Start any other servers that have not yet been started.
- Start your web/application layer.
The Value of the (Graceful Stop/Start Method)
Disabling Business Objects XI servers allows the servers to retain and complete their current threads/work, but it stops it from accepting any new work. Nevertheless, this requires caution. If users retain access to the environment (web and application layer are up) while you are disabling servers and you disable ALL servers, or most of them to a point below capacity demands, then you will cause errors for users! Therefore, if the users do retain access to the environment disabling servers would only be done partially to the collection of similar servers (with reason). Also do not forget to enable the servers after the servers are restarted!!!
Please also see the article “The Best Way to Stop a Business Objects Server“.
Hi Julian,
Thanks for such an informative post. I have one basic doubt here. I know that you can start/stop CMS only through CCM but I also know that all the requests go through CMS and if CMS is down, you can’t perform other tasks. So my question is which server handles requests made by CCM about configuration changes? Can I log in to CCM if CMS is down since there is no server to validate userid/password entered in CCM login?
Thank you !!
Hi Asd, CCM in XIR2 requires no password to access it; but you do need access rights to the server. In fact, on Windows you don’t even need to access CCM, you could just start the Windows service for the CMS and other servers. This all change with BO XI 3 though. The services are wrapped up inside a “super service” called the SI Agent which accesses them. CCM in BO XI 3 connects to the SI Agent in order to administer the services (BO servers).
So to answer your question, “which server handles requests made by CCM about configuration changes?”, I would say that the OS of the server manages this. If you have rights on the server to access the CCM program then that is all that is needed. No further authentication is needed.
Hi Julian,
Thanks a lot ! When you say “CCM in XIR2 requires no password to access it; but you do need access rights to the server”, do you mean the Window’s user needs access to all the servers installed on it?
If so, what happens in case of distributed BO installation? Can I change properties of all the servers from one machine (by accessing other machines through network) or do I need to go to each machine, on which BO servers are installed, to change properties?
Hi Asd,
Good questions. BO terminology causes some confusion here, so let me try to be more precise and careful…
Business Objects Servers: CMS, WebI Report Server, Event Server, Job Servers… Let’s call these BO Servers
Windows Server or Machine: This is the physical, or even virtual machine on which the Windows server operating system is installed and configured as a single Windows server isntance. This is what you access through Terminal Services or Remote Desktop Connection. Let’s call it the Windows Server.
In general, the basic Windows “Power User” or “Administrator” roles on the Windows Server will provide the access needed to administer CCM on the server. Through CCM, you will have access to the BO Servers.
CCM in XIR2 has a little drop-down box in the right-hand top corner that will allow you to enter in Windows Server names where other CCM installation exist that can contain your distributed BO Server architecture. You will require the proper access to these Windows Servers to be able to administer the BO servers in CCM whether you log in to the servers themselves, or you use CCM on another Windows Server to access them.
*It should be noted that if you are using CCM on one Windows server to access another Windows Server’s BO Servers then you can only stop/start those BO Servers, you cannot make changes to their configuration.
**Also note, that the Windows Servers that you administer remotely through CCM need not be in the same CMS cluster, they only need to have CCM installed.
Your answer left no room for doubts
Thanks a lot!!
Great article,
This raises a question for our environment. We require that BO access a network share so we had the AD folks create a network account that we could configure to run these services. Now what do we tell the server folks on how to configure this network account. Is there a main Windows service for BO? Can you open services.msc and set BO to run with the privelages of a network account?
In BO XI 3 there is one main service that manages all of the BO servers/services; it is called the “SI Agent”. I believe within it you can configure the restart order.
If you are using BO XI R1/R2 then each service is on it own initially. However, you could create a batch file that would start each service in the order you specify, you may have to build in “wait” statements to ensure they don’t all start immediately one after the other.
The “service” account should have rights enough to run the services on the machine, it does not need to allow interactive log in (a security gap). Then on each service you just set it up to run the service as the user (Log On tab of the Windows service) by entering the [domain]/userid and password under the “This account” option.
Thanks Julian,
We are using BO XI 3.1.
I’ll let you know how it goes
Thanks again Julian this worked very well for us. We did have to play with the Windows permissions on the folder a bit but the BO service started perfectly and is working well
Great news John! Glad I could help. Thanks for reporting back.
Hello,
i have Business Objects Enterprise XI 3.1 SP2, i need a script to stop all BO servers to make a cold backup.
I tried to use commands similar to the following:
“C:\Program Files\Business Objects\BusinessObjects Enterprise 12.0\win32_x86\ccm.exe” -managedstart CMS_NAME.AdaptiveJobServer -cms CMS_NAME:6400 -username XXX -password XXX -authentication secEnterprise
It work for all servers but it doens’t work for the CentralManagementServer …
I tried to use command like: TASKKILL / F / IM sia.exe but it doesn’t work…it don’t stop the process sia.exe….
have you find a solution? If yes which?
Thanks a lot!!!
How about the following?:
C:\>
C:\> WAIT 30
C:\> NET STOP “Server Intelligence Agent”
Hello All,
We are about to implement stopping the BO XI 3.1 Server via Script. Script shows stopping the Servers and restarting the Server but disable. But according to above content it needs to disbale the Server first in sequence then Stopping the Server and restaring the Server. So, could you please let me know running the Script for stating and stopping the Bo Enterprise Server is really ” Cleanest Method to Start a Business Objects Environmen”.
Hello All,
I have just tested the script to enable and disbale the Web Intelligence Processing Server and its works fine. Change the information according to your environment.
-disbale information avaiable for Unix in Admin Module and it works fine for windows too.
cd “XXX:\Program Files\Business Objects\BusinessObjects Enterprise 12.0\win32_x86″
ccm.exe -disable XXXX.WebIntelligenceProcessingServer -cms XXX:Port No(XXX) -username XXXX -password XXXX -authentication secEnterprise
Team,
I have installed BO 3.1 on a new box.Now i have only 2 services enabled,apache tomcat 5.5 and SIA.I m able to login to CMC with administrator and blank password in enterprise authentication,but when i try to login to the designer with the same credentials it says login failed.Pls let me know if i have missed out something.
This is a bit off-topic, but when you use CMC are you running it from a browser on the server? Are you running Designer on the server? What I am getting at is if everything is as you say, and nothing is overlooked, and no CMC crashed, then I think your problem must be a network issue.
Julian,
Thanks a lot for your response,i checked into the CMC>License Keys,it seems to be a request for authorised license.Now with the new license key,i m able to use the designer.In the CCM when i login to Manage servers,i couldn’t find any of the services enabled except the Central Management Services,so i logged into the CMC and hit on Servers> Nodes>New Server and added all the required services manually.Now the issue is resolved.
Thanks,
Trishna
Hi Julian,
We are recently facing some issue while server outages.
We face this issue, When ever BO server or the DB Server attached to CMS is down due to an outage and it comes back.
BO services doesn’t work and schduled reports fails give some operating system error. To resolve this we have to goto CCM and start all the server again then things work fine. what is the cause of it?
i follow this sequence for shutdown and reverse for restart.
1. Web server
2. Apache tomcat server
3. SIA agent
can you please confirm is it correct sequence and the real cause of this issue.
I am new to BO so will appreciate some advise for this.
Thanks a lot.
Monica
Hi Monica, that is a good basic approach. The reason that is good is only because it prevents InfoView and Web Intelligence users from getting in to your system as it goes down. There are more details in the article about the order of server shutdown. In general, I do not recommend shutting down the SI Agent unless you cannot access CMC of CCM’s server controls first. In a perfect world I would use CMC to cleanly shutdown all job server and reporting servers first then work my way up to the CMS and then the SIA.
Your errors are probably due to communication errors between your CMS and the database. Check your server’s event log. In Windows you want to look at the “Application” section. Try to match the times to the failures, you should see something there. Hopefully it might show you so reasons for the behavior.