Hardware and Software

TM1 Tutorials

1. Hardware Specifications - Memory

This item is first on our list simply due to the implications of exceeding the amount of memory on your hardware - be it virtualized or not. Within 32-bit Servers consuming all available memory will crash a IBM Cognos TM1 Server in most cases, Under 64-bit Hardware the Pagefile will be used which is approximately 8 times slower than Memory.

The Bottom Line: While TM1 is running on your Hardware the Memory consumption of that hardware shouldn't exceed 80%. If you are going past this mark it is time for an upgrade, which is not the end of the world with how cheap Memory is.


TM1 Tutorials

2. TM1 and Virtual Servers

Server Virtualization technology has come a long way in the last decade and it's easy to see why it's so readily adopted by IT Departments across the world. The space saving, cost saving and time saving benefits far outweigh the alternatives. But as a recommendation for IBM Cognos TM1 we do not endorse virtualizing a Physical Server which runs a TM1 Application Server.

There are two major reasons for this:
  1. TM1 doesn't behave like traditional business intelligence applications or other databases which store a majority (80%+) of their information on the Hard drive, instead TM1 harnesses the performance of memory on the server and although Virtualization has made some amazing strides in performance of simulated hardware there is presently still a 'interpretation' lag for want of a better term where instead of TM1 accessing Memory directly, it accesses the memory controller in the virtual environment which then accesses that memory from the physical host server.
  2. The second reason is that this creates a noticeable lag.
The Bottom Line: Although we do not recommend virtualization for TM1 servers it pays to understand that the cost and time saving benefit from an IT perspective can far outweigh optimal performance of a single Application server within your company.


TM1 Tutorials

3. Where is TM1 Running?

It may seem like an obvious proposition, but we recommend that TM1 is always running on a Dedicated Server. TM1 has a built in feature which can run TM1 application servers through the TM1 Excel Client (Perspectives), and in many old implementations this was seen to be favorable due to Finance/Management Accounting TM1 Projects often flying under the IT Radar.

The Bottom Line: Where possible have a TM1 Dedicated Server provisioned by IT, Documentation on how to install TM1 versions 9.4 and 9.5 can be found in our Articles Directory.

 

Continue Reading "TM1 Health-Check - Part 2"