How to Install Planning Analytics Workspace Windows 2019

Time needed: 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Detailed steps to Install Planning Analytics Workspace to Windows Server 2019.

1. Create a new Windows 2019 server

   First, create a new Windows server and install all the standard stuff.

2. Update Windows

   Make sure that your server has all the most recent Windows Updates applied.

3. Disable Antivirus

   If there is any third-party anti-virus software running on the PAW server, please disable it prior to installation.

4. Install Mirantis Container Runtime

   Docker is now supplied by Mirantis and is called Mirantis Container Runtime. Please see this post for full details for downloading and installing Mirantis Container Runtime on Windows Server 2019.

5. Download and Unzip Planning Analytics Workspace

   Head over to IBM Fix Central and download the latest version of Planning Analytics Workspace. You will need the file that has “win_2019” in it. This will be about 4Gb smaller than the Windows 2016 version as it does not contain Docker.
   
   Once downloaded, unzip it and rename the unzipped folder PAW_nnnn. Here the “nnnn” part represents the version, for example, use “PAW_2087” for version 2.0.87. Then each time you update, you will add a new folder and migrate from the previous version. We use just 2087 so that it is easy to refer to in Powershell.

6. Create a location for Planning Analytics Workspace installation files

   Create a folder at the root of your data drive. Something like E:PAW

7. Copy the PAW installation files

   Following this, move the unzipped PAW installation folder into the new folder, so in our example it will end up as E:PAWPAW_nnnn.

8. STOP! Change the Drive Docker is to Use

   This step changes the drive that Docker is to use. After the Mirantis installation of Docker, Docker will be trying to use your C drive for Docker. This is not recommended as the containers can grow very large and could conflict with the operating system. We, therefore, recommend that you change the drive that Docker uses to your data drive. To do this do the following:
   
   Create a folder on a data disk (E, F etc) at the root called “Docker”. Note the casing of the letters as these are important. Our example here on the data disk has a capital D and the rest lower case.
   Go to C:ProgramDatadocker/config (this will have been created via the Mirantis setup above)
   In config, check for a file called “daemon.json”.
   If it exists, edit it.
   If it doesn’t exist, then create a new text file.
   Paste or edit the file so that it has the following in it: 
   { "shutdown-timeout": 180, "data-root": "e:\Docker" }
   Modify the path to the Docker folder you created above. Mine is on E drive, so my path is e:\Docker. Note the double backslash and capital letter at the start of “Docker”.
   Also, be very careful that there is no formatting in this command – the inverted commas must be straight up and down, not curly!
   Save this file as “daemon.json”. 
   Go to Services and restart the Docker service. Make sure it does restart!
   Now, when you go to install PAW, the installation will go to ProgramData/docker and read the daemon.json file. It will then be redirected to the location you want.

9. Run the PAW installer

   1. Open a PowerShell window as an Administrator.
   2. Navigate to your PAW folder (like E:PAWPAW_nnnn).
   3. run ./start.ps1
   This will initiate the installation of Planning Analytics Workspace on Windows Server 2019.

10. Initial Checks

    First up, the installer does some basic checks of the Docker environment. If you have not switched Docker to use a drive other than drive C, you will get this warning. I’m going to say No to this to switch to another drive as I have already instructed Docker to use drive E above.

11. Loading Images

    After that, PAW install script will install the containers required for Planning Analytics Workspace. This might take a long time. Be patient, it will complete eventually.

12. Start PAW Administration tool

    At the end of the validation step, you will be prompted whether you want to start the Planning Analytics Administration tool. Answer Y to this prompt.
    

13. Accept the licenses

    After that, you will then be prompted to accept both the IBM and Non-IBM licenses.

14. Enter the PAW Configuration details

    In the Planning Analytics Workspace Administration Tool, copy and paste the various settings from the tm1s.cfg file for your TM1 model.
    
    The values that go in these boxes are as follows:
    TM1 Admin Server URI: the URI for your TM1 server, with either HTTPS and port 5898 or HTTP and port 5895
    TM1 Application Server URI: Your TM1 Web address WITHOUT the trailing “/tm1web/”
    TM1 Login Server URI: The URI from the Admin server above, excluding the port and suffixed with the HTTPPortNumber from tm1s.cfg on your TM1 server.
    So if our TM1 server name was “TM1XPA” and our fully qualified address was “tm1xpa.tm1explorers.com”, the HTTPPortNumber from tm1s.cfg was “12345” and we were using HTTPS, then the settings would be likely to be:
    https://tm1xpa.tm1explorers.com:5898
    http://tm1xpa.tm1explorers.com:9510
    https://tm1xpa.tm1explorers.com:12345
    
    Note that in the screenshot below we are using TM1 security, not CAM security. For CAM you will be prompted for the Cognos BI Gateway, Dispatcher URI and Authentication Namespace.
    

15. Validate

    With those values entered, hit Validate at the bottom of the screen. That will check what you have entered and will probably show a screen like the following, with the Application Server URI not successful (if you installed Planning Analytics Spreadsheet Services).

16. Update

    Now hit the Update button next to Validate. This will write your entries out to the paw.ps1 file inside the /config folder for your version of PAW.

17. Wait!

    Now is the next time to wait. Flip over to the Status tab and it will probably be blank. Hit the Refresh (not Restart) button and wait.
    
    You can also open Task Manager to see progress. For a new installation of PAW on a fresh Windows Server 2019 box, it will get up to about 16Gb of memory consumed on the Performance tab and the CPU will sit at 100% until it is finished. It might take about 10 minutes.
    
    When it is complete, you will see a screen that looks like this. Note that there are a few services that are “Initialization” services and these are to get others going. Once they are up, the initialization services are shut down.
    

18. Launch Planning Analytics Workspace

    Open a fresh PowerShell window and navigate to your PAW installation (F:/PAW/PAW_nnnn).
    When there, enter ./scripts/launch.ps1. This will then launch PAW into your browser.
    Note that each time PAW restarts, it assigned a new IP address inside the Docker container. Using launch.ps1 will go get the IP address and then open that in your browser. You can’t bookmark that though cos it will be different next time.

19. Open Planning Analytics Workspace from another PC

    Once you know that it is working on the server, go to another PC and enter http://PAWServerName. Because it uses port 80, there is no need to add the port suffix. That should open PAW directly in the browser.
    After that, you can distribute the address or add it as a connection inside Planning Analytics for Excel for use there as well.

20. Add exclusion to Antivirus

    Add exclusions to both the Docker and PAW folders.