Crystal Server XI 1

[davida37]

Hi,

I need advice regarding Crystal Server XI on a W2003 box. Box has 8 CPU's - 2.2GHz and 7.5 Gig RAM.

We get a lot of Crystal errors - page server errors mainly. Looking in the Event viewer there are lots of Errors logs:

Failed to register with the CMS ali-dw. Please make sure the CMS is up and running. Attempting an automatic retry...

and also lots of warning logs:
Transport error: Communication failure.


On this box there is also a SQl Server datawarehouse. which updates on the hour.

I will put crystal server on it own box next week and test. Will this resolve the problem? I hope so. Would BOXI solve my problems? but isnt it built on same technology?

Is it the high specification of the box its currently on, or potentially the DW which has too much traffic running through it which causes all the errors?

Please advise or let me know of similar problems -or even success CRXI server stories and what spec the machine is + what else is on the machine - if anything?

Thanks,

 

[MJRBIM]

How much Report traffic are you serving from your CR XI SERVER...? Volume of reports & Concurrent Users.

How big are the SQL Server DW updates that are running on the hour (and do your CMS Error timestamps correspond with the hourly update)....?

Are you using the local SQL server as the CMS database...?

BOE-XI can allow you to clustering and load-balancing - BUT there's a big $$$ jump from CR-XI SERVER to BOE-XI.

I would try a stand-alone box for the CR-XI SERVER and maybe the CMS database too before heading down the BOE-XI path.

 

[davida37]

Ideally - would you put the server on one box and the CMS db server on another? or would you both on the same box?

Currently the CMS database is on the same server.

Report traffic is fairly limited at the moment. CRXI is a new reporting portal to run along side an existing in-house reporting portal which has the majority of reports.

Problems seem to occur (possibly) when there are more than 3 users trying to access reports simultaneously for example.

We have 10 concurrent user licenses and 5 nameed user licenses. Administrator is a named user, as is my NTlogin for example. We use NT authentication. So-far there hasn’t been many cases when there are more than 5 concurrent users on the system (I monitor this when the system is experiencing problems). I have registered all users in Active directory as concurrent users (1500+ ) – could this cause any problems? like I said - never more than 5 conn users actually on system + all the errors I have seen in the app error logs - all occurred before I added all users as conncurrent users.

all errors point towards communication errors (Transport error: Communication failure) - and failing to register with the CMS

I need to check out when the database updates – although I think that this might only contribute toward the problems. For example, on Friday the server was intermittently causing errors for 2 hours. --- I will update when I have investigated the error logs vs times of DW updates.

Thanks

 

[MJRBIM]

For a vanilla CR-XI SERVER install, the services and the CMS database can exist on the same box.

However, I normally don't suggest putting any of the CR-XI Services on the same box as your Datawarehouse or Source Databases.

The "Transport error: Communication failure" sometimes refers to an issue with the accounts that the CR-XI servcies are running under on the box.

If you do a knowledge base search on BOBJ Support for "Communication failure" it should give you some places to start looking.

 

[davida37]

I will check it out.

what do you recommend as a specification for a dedicated Crystal Server box in an ideal world?

I think I read somewhere somewhere that there shouldn't be more than 4 processors on a Crystal server box??

Thanks.

 

[MJRBIM]

I normally deal with BOE-XI, so I'm not sure of all the limits that are placed on the scaled-down CR-XI SERVER product.

I know that the all the CR-XI SERVER services have to reside on a single physical-server (ie. no clustering), and that there is a MAX of 20 Concurrent licenses available per CR-XI SERVER install.

I'm not sure of the processor limits that apply to CR-XI SERVER, but I would expect BOBJ to limit it. I know that there is also currently some licensing debate with BOBJ about how they intend to treat Dual-Core processors (as a single processor or as two-processors).

We use the following server config for our BOE-XI clustered environments....

- HP Proliant DL380 G4 Server
- Dual-Processors (2 x 3.2 GHZ)
- 2 GB of RAM per processor
- 6 x 72 GB Harddrives
(RAID : C-drive = 72 GB, D-drive = 144 GB)

That's probably wayyyyyy more juice than you need for CR-XI SERVER, but the RAID is probably not a bad idea since you can't cluster/synch your INPUT and OUTPUT FRS in that product.

 

[RedEyeHorse]

Hi.
I've been trying to track down a "Recommended" configuration for CRXI Server, or more specifically for Crystal Vision Server. Only thing out there is the 'Minimum' hardware requirements.. which is almost certainly not enough for an average 10 license setup.
This HP Proliant setup sounds like it'd be overkill, but its the closest I have come thus far.
Any suggestions?
I appreciate the help!
-Horse (w/RedEyes)

 

[davida37]

thanks do much for your advice so far. Its really appreciated. going back to this...

We are a World wide organisation with 3 main hubs WW - Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific.

The Inforview client is currently on one box in the US. The Inforview client works great over there. I am in the UK and the performance is a bit sluggish and not so responsive. i.e when you click on the folders - they take a while to expand etc..

Is this a problem you face? - we have a legacy reporting portal which seems ok - even though its serving out of the US also.

Is there any recommendations for this - and any remedy? ie.e I was possibily thinking about having 3 diff front end locations - i.e. 3 diff infoview installs in each location and pointing to the same Crystal Server. THis would mean the client would be localised & performance better - but means there would be 3 diff URLs for the diff geographies - which is a bit messy.

Thanks
David

 

[elsenorjose]

If you go to Business Objects' website and do a search for 'server configuration' under 'crystal reports server', the following PDF comes up:

http://technicalsupport.businessobj...iceId=&dialogID=10398659&stateId=1 0 10400089

Starting on page 376, you'll see some typical configurations based on usage. Might not be precisely what you're looking for but it's a good start.

 

[MJRBIM]

The CE-10 document referenced above does not apply to CRYSTAL REPORTS SERVER XI.

CRYSTAL REPORTS SERVER XI is limited to a SINGLE server install for all components. The solution you are suggesting would be considered a MULTI-SERVER install because you are installing components on different servers in different regions.

If you talk to BOBJ about a "3-hub global" solution - they will require that you upgrade from CR-XI SERVER to the Business Objects Enterprise XI infrastructure with a BOE-XI local server in each region that are clustered together.

Users in an individual region would point to the local Web-Connector rather than the overseas Web-Connector.

WARNING : Compared to CRYSTAL REPORTS SERVER XI - this would be a big $$$ solution (probably $150K+).

You have three possible cheaper work arounds -

1.) Create three (3) totally "Stand-Alone" CRYSTAL REPORTS SERVER XI installs (one per hub) - and keep the users, RPT content, etc synched manually. This is a big increase on Admin functions.

2.) Have non-North American users connect to a Windows Terminal Services/Remote Connection session that is hosted in North America before they can connect to InfoView.

3.) Stop using InfoView. Have your developers create a custom reporting interface/portal using the .NET or JAVA SDKs so that your single CRYSTAL REPORTS SERVER XI install is only acting as a Report Library and Engine for your portal, but is not using the DEFAULT InfoView interface.

Hope this helps.

 

[rhinok]

mjrbim knows what he's talking about.

Also, Crystal Reports Server is limited to a single, quad processor server.

I'd recommend that you review the following BusinessObjects XI Sizing document:

http://support.businessobjects.com/communityCS/TechnicalPapers/boe_xi_sizing_recommendations.pdf

Crystal Reports Server is built on the BusinessObjects Enterprise platform. You're limited in some functionality, but you should be able to identify your base hardware requirements from this document.

~Kurt

http://www.acuityreporting.com