February 4th, 2021
TM1 Administrators of the IBM Planning Analytics that follow best practices should be using a development environment to create and test changes before promoting TM1 model modifications to the production environment. This process can be cumbersome and requires the TM1 server to be restarted which can be very inconvenient to other users. But today we are going to discuss how you can easily move development changes to Production in IBM Planning Analytics TM1 with a tool called Soterre by Motio.
TM1 Deployment Streamlined
Soterre streamlines deployment for IBM Planning Analytics TM1 content. Soterre eliminates the manual processes that TM1 otherwise requires for deploying changes into production. Gone are the days when TM1 Administrators must manually copy all the content into the target environment wasting a lot of time.
Yes, if you are more advanced TM1 administration, you could use TM1 Performance Modeler and leverage the TM1 Transfer Out Command. But for many of our Finance team members that administer IBM Planning Analytics using the TM1 Transfer Out command can be clumsy but like Soterre the TM1 Transfer Out command can eliminate the need to shut down and restart the TM1 Servers. This is great news because kicking everyone off the system is never a good thing.
Soterre however not only eliminates restarts, but it also eliminates the need to keep a manual log of changes, because Soterre tracks the changes for you. And TM1 Administrators can go back and restore previous versions. Lodestar loves Soterre because it allows our Finance Modelers to follow best practices for IBM Planning Analytics while streamlining the deployment of changes.
No TM1 Server Restarts
Yes, I said you can deploy the TM1 changes to your production environment with Soterre or using the TM1 Transfer Out command without having to restart the IBM Planning Analytic TM1 Servers. For many Lodestar Solutions TM1 clients this is huge because they must get IT to restart the servers.
Benefits of Making TM1 Changes without Restarting TM1 Servers
Think about the benefits of not having to restart your TM1 servers. You don’t have to find an IT resource to restart the server yes, but it is even better than that. You will eliminate the downtime required to take the TM1 server out of production and wait for cubes to repopulate. All of this frees you to do fine-tuning updates, pushing out new versions, even on an object level, whenever desired—without disrupting the work of others. No more scheduling updates after hours or weekends! Soterre gives IBM Planning Analytics TM1 administrators FREEDOM!
What does Soterre do?
Soterre automates your deployments between environments and gives you more control over managing them. Soterre allows you to deploy all the changes in folders, or individual objects of a folder. Not only can the TM1 Modeler choose which TM1 objects to deploy but they can choose which version of the objects. To make it even easier the TM1 Modeler using Soterre can use tags to organize the TM1 change deployments.
Soterre Wins
Where Soterre outranks using the TM1 Transfer Out command which is available to all IBM Planning Analytics Modelers is when you make a mistake. Yes, what if you screw up? Come on admit it. We have all had one of the oh sh*t moments when deploying changes. Soterre allows you to undo your change and revert back. I like to think this is like an insurance policy backing you up in bad times. Refer to our earlier blog on how Soterre helps with version control, Version Control and Audit trail for IBM Planning Analytics TM1 with Soterre.
Soterre by Motio
Lodestar Solutions thinks Soterre is another amazing tool by Motio. For years Motio has delivered fabulous tools for Cognos Analytics BI Administrators. See our blog, Don’t upgrade to Cognos Analytics without Motio! Now, Motio is making the life of IBM Planning Analytics TM1 Administrators better too.
Learn More:
If you are a TM1 Administrator and looking for a much easier way to deploying changes and want to be able to change your IBM Cognos Planning Analytics TM1 system back when you make a mistake or executives change their mind, then we need to chat about Soterre by Motio.
Contact Lodestar Solutions to discuss your challenges and how you can get what is like an insurance policy for your IBM Planning Analytics TM1 content. You will be able to diagnose issues faster, have smoother deployments but most of all piece of mind that when you make a mistake, which we all do, you can fix it fast.
Email Sales@lodestarsolutions.com or call us at 813-415-2910 to set up a demo of Soterre.