Aramar Tips: How to move databases in IBM Business Planning Analytics

In IBM Planning Analytics Cloud or on-premise, you may need to move databases between environments.  

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In this knowledge base article, our trusted Product Specialists have written a short ‘how to’ move databases in IBM Planning Analytics.

We have created a checklist you can use to move your database from production into development, then from development to production. Before running through the checklist, we’d like to mention a couple of structural things. In a TM1 model, we create a few extra folders and subfolders to move objects around. We have a ‘<database name>\MIGRATION’ folder that we use to port objects. A ‘\MIGRATION \IN’ folder to hold objects that we are bringing into the database and a ‘\MIGRATION \OUT’ folder to hold objects ported out of the database.

In addition, we have folders within these for the specific instance of a transfer. We name these in the format ‘yymmdd-<description of the transfer reason’ e.g., ‘220321-Create Month End Reset’. We copy the objects in development into a folder called ‘\INPROGRESS’ to ensure that any ongoing work does not get overwritten. 

 In this example, we want to take a complete database from production into development to have up-to-date data.

Move the database from production into live

  • Ensure everyone is logged off the model in the production environment. 
  • Commit the production database to disk by running the SAVEDATAALL command. 
  • Stop the production database. 
  • Create a new folder in the <database name>\MIGRATION\OUT directory, e.g., ‘220321-Create Month End Reset Test’. 
  • Copy and compress the database to this new folder. 
  • Restart the database. 
  • Let colleagues know that the production environment is available again. 
  • Copy the backed-up database to a <database name>\MIGRATION\IN directory on the development environment. 
  • Ensure colleagues have logged off the development environment. 
  • Copy any IBM Planning Objects currently in development to a folder, such as <database name>\INPROGRESS. 
  • Commit the development database to disk by running the SAVEDATAALL command. 
  • Stop the development database. 
  • Rename the <database name>\DATA folder to something like <database name>\DATA_yymmdd. Extract the compressed file in the <database name>\MIGRATION\IN folder and populate the <database name>\DATA folder with the objects. 
  • Overwrite the objects in the <database name>\DATA with the objects in the <database name>\INPROGRESS folder so that you have the latest version of the objects in development. 
  • Start the development database. 
  • Check you’ve got up-to-date data in the database and have the objects you have been working on in the database, and they are all OK. 
  • If everything is OK, let everyone working on the development environment know and either delete or move to the <database name>\BACKUP folder the database name>\DATA_yymmdd folder. Otherwise, stop the development database, delete the <database name>\DATA folder you had transferred and rename the database name>\DATA_yymmdd folder back to database name>\DATA and restart the development database, work out what went wrong and restart from the appropriate place. 

Move objects from development to production

  • Ensure everyone is logged off the model in the development environment. 
  • Commit the development database to disk by running the SAVEDATAALL command. 
  • Stop the development database. 
  • Create a new folder in the <database name>\MIGRATION\OUT directory, e.g., ‘220321-Create Month End Reset’. 
  • Move the IBM Planning Analytics objects that you want to transfer to the production or live environment. 
  • Restart the development database. 
  • Let colleagues know that the development environment is available again. 
  • Make a backup copy of the <database name>\DATA folder or rename it temporarily. 
  • Copy the <database name>\MIGRATION\OUT directory on the development environment to a <database name>\MIGRATION\IN directory on the production environment. 
  • Ensure colleagues have logged off the production environment. 
  • Commit the production database to disk by running the SAVEDATAALL command. 
  • Copy the IBM Planning Objects in the <database name>\MIGRATION\IN folder containing the new objects to the <database name>\DATA folder and overwrite any objects. 
  • Restart the production server. 
  • Check that you’ve got the up-to-date objects in the model and that they are all OK. 
  • If everything is OK, then broadcast to everyone working on the live environment that they can resume and either delete or move to the <database name>\BACKUP folder the database name>\DATA_yymmdd folder. Otherwise, stop the production database, delete the <database name>\DATA folder you had transferred and rename the database name>\DATA_yymmdd folder back to database name>\DATA and restart the production database. 

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Aramar Product Specialists –  20th December, 2022