Part 5. Lock and Load - Fire up the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server

Part 5. Lock and Load - Fire up the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server 

By now we should have a fully functioning database server that's already configured for MicroStrategy use, and the MicroStrategy suite fully installed. What's the next logical step? Let's start the Intelligence Server up! Before we start the server however, we do have some configuration steps do perform first. In this tutorial we're going to setup our ODBC DSN for the metadata, create the repository tables, and link the Intelligence Server to those tables. After all fo this, we'll start the server and look for any errors.

To start off, we're going to need to create our initial ODBC DSN. The MicroStrategy Connectivity Configuration Wizard will create the odbc.ini entries for you, you just need to fill out a few simple fields. Let's go ahead and navigate to our <install>/home/bin directory and launch 'mstrconnectwiz'

mstradm@l:/mstr/home/bin> ./mstrconnectwiz

Select the database type you want the repository to sit in. In our case, we're using PostgreSQL. Select that option and press Next.

Go ahead and fill out the details of our PostgreSQL database we setup in Step 3.

Data Source Name: The name of our odbc.ini entry with the database details
Host Name: The server name where our database resides. Since our database server is the same name as our Intelligence Server, we can use localhost.
Port Number: Port number that the database is listening on. We didn't make any changes, so leave this at default.
Database Name: The name of the database that we created in Step 3.
Default User Name: The database username for MicroStrategy that we created in Step 3.

Once all fields are filled out, press the 'Test' button to test our new connection. Type in the password that you created for the 'mstr' database user, and hit Connect.

Once your setup is connecting properly, go ahead and press Finish to exit the Wizard. If you were to navigate to <install>/home/odbc.ini now, you would see our new DSN entry.

Next, let's create the repository tables in our database. While still in the <install>/home/bin directory, launch 'mstrcfgwiz'

mstradm@l:/mstr/home/bin> ./mstrcfgwiz

With 'Metadata, History List and Statistics Repository Tables' highlighted, hit Next.

At this point, I'm not going to worry about History List or Statistics tables. We'll leave the configuration of those for another time. Since we're focused on the Metadata tables right now, uncheck the other two and hit Next.

Next, select the Data Source Name that we just created. Type in the user name, password, and hit Next.

If the wizard is able to connect, you'll be presented with a Summary screen. Select Finish to begin the table creation.

Once the wizard is done creating tables successfully, keep 'Return to Welcome page' checked and hit Close. This will put us back at the main page so that we can link up our Intelligence Server. *Note; If you receive any errors during the table creation process, re-check the steps performed in Part 3 of this series.

Now, let's link the Intelligence Server and Metadata up. Leave 'MicroStrategy Intelligence Server' checked and hit Next

Again, you'll need to specify the correct Data Source Name, user name, and password. Hit Next.

In the next screen you're going to need to connect to the Metadata with the MicroStrategy 'Administrator' user. Leave the password blank and hit Next.

Since is Metadata is brand new, we need to create a new server definition. Type in the name whatever name you'd like here. Keep 'Use as the active Server Definition' and hit Next.

Here is where you specify the Port number for the Intelligence Server to run on. I'm going to leave the default port of 34952 as we've already opened this port on the firewall back in Part 2. Also, the option 'Register Intelligence Server as a Service' looks to be disabled since we're not running this wizard as a superuser. Once we finish this setup we can register the server as a service easy enough with the 'mstrctl' command. Go ahead and hit Next.

Now you should see a Summary screen displaying the details of our Intelligence Server setup. Hit Finish.

Alright, we're finished with the Intelligence Server setup now. Go ahead and close the Configuration Wizard and go back to the command line.

Before starting, let's go ahead and register the server as a service. Navigate to the <install>/home/bin directory and run the following command with sudo

mstradm@l:/mstr/home/bin> sudo ./mstrctl -s IntelligenceServer rs
root's password:

Now, let's go ahead and start the server. To start as root, run the following command with sudo:

mstradm@l:/mstr/home/bin> sudo ./mstrctl -s IntelligenceServer start

You won't see any feedback on the command line, however if you want to see what the server is doing, navigate to <install>/log and run:

mstradm@l:/mstr/log> tail -f DSSErrors.log

This will echo the server output to the command line in real-time.

If you want to check on the status of the server, navigate back to <install>/home/bin and run:

mstradm@l:/mstr/home/bin> ./mstrctl -s IntelligenceServer gs | grep "<state"
<state can_be_paused="0">running</state>

As you can see from the output, the server is in 'running' state. It's alive! Also, if you want to check to make sure the server registered as a

service correctly, you can grep for "execution_mode" instead of "&lt;state"

mstradm@l:/mstr/home/bin>; ./mstrctl -s IntelligenceServer gs | grep "execution_mode"
<execution_mode>service</execution_mode>;

Here you can see Execution Mode is 'service', so we're all good!

So now that we have a running Intelligence Server, we can go ahead and start connecting some clients to it and have some real fun! Stay tuned...