Arc on IBM Cloud

Arc & Slice
1

I am trying to get ARC set up to work with IBM Cloud, and have not managed to get it working yet. I have the HTTPSPortNumber set up in my config file, and I’ve tried different variations within the AdminHost/Connections section of the “settings.yaml” file, but I cannot seem to get it to connect. Has anyone managed to successfully set up ARC with an IBM Cloud server?

Thanks,
Jeff

2

Hi @jeffrey.williamson,

You will need to use the connections setting rather than admin host. Are you able to access the URL from the browser? You can test via this URL, replace hostname with your IP address or URL and the HTTPPortNumber with what you have in the tm1.cfg file: https://hostname:HTTPPortNumber/api/v1/Server

3

Hi @jeffrey.williamson,

To connect to an IBM Cloud server, Arc will have to use the TM1 RESP API to connect directly to the TM1 instance, could you please check if you can access your TM1 instance using the TM1 REST API.

A quick check would be to request the metadata in your browser:

https://serverName:httpPortNumber/api/v1/$metadata

More information here:

4

Hi Vincent,

I wasn’t able to connect to the port using the string you supplied. I’m working with IBM to see if there is something on their end that is missing, I’ll let you know if anything comes of that.

One question I have been wondering - and maybe this is just my lack of knowledge around this - but where would I enter credentials to access the physical cloud server? I understand that once the connection is set up, I would click within the ARC interface to log in to my TM1 server, but I have different credentials to access the physical box - do I not need to enter those somewhere?

Thanks,
Jeff

5

Hi @jeffrey.williamson,

We will contact you offline to see if we can help getting it set up.

6

Hi @jeffrey.williamson,

The steps to use Arc with the IBM Cloud are as follows. The instructions are based on using TM1 security mode 5 (the default):

  1. Upload the Arc executable to your Remote Desktop System. The easiest way to do this is to use FTP upload facility.
  2. Create a folder named Arc in your Documents
  3. Save arc.exe to Documents\Arc.
  4. Double-click on the Arc executable to start the Arc server.
  5. Open settings.yml in Wordpad and change the admin host from https://localhost:5898 to https://data:5898
  6. Save settings.yml
  7. Navigate to the http://localhost:7070
  8. Go to the About page of Arc (top right icon) and tick TM1 Credentials > Store Credentials.
  9. Click on your TM1 instance to login, you need to use the TM1 automation credentials provided in your welcome pack:
    • CAM Namespace: LDAP
    • User Name: customername_tm1_automation
    • Password: password provided by IBM

After you have logged in you will need to add the TM1 automation user to the Admin group if it hasn’t been added already. To do this:

  1. Login in to Architect with your IBM Id
  2. Right-click on the server: Security > Clients/Groups
  3. Find the TM1 automation user and tick the Admin group box.
  4. Close the browser and log back into Arc.

NOTE: The alternative to using the TM1 automation credentials is to change TM1 to security mode 1

7

Hi @tryan,

Does it mean that IBM Cloud TM1 instances do not support direct external REST API connections?

8

Hi @prajtar,

No, you can access it externally but you don’t have access to the ODBC data sources. We will post an article about how to connect remotely.

9

Hi,

With a little guidance from IBM on top of your help, I was able to connect with ARC to my IBM using a “Connection” within the Settings file. The string for us ended up being: https://serverrname/tm1/api/tm1servername.

Thanks so much for all your help!
Jeff

1 Like
10

Hi @jeffrey.williamson,

Great to hear you go it working.

11

Hi I have a following question. One of the customers would like to run Arc as a service from the IBM cloud.
I am pretty sure they will not allowed this to be installed on data tier, but has anyone ever approached IBM to ask if they allow to have it installed on rich tier and open required ports?

Is there any official discussion with IBM on how we use our tools on Cloud, or is it more a case, we test what is possible and if something is we use it?

12

Hi, I have also been running into some issues setting up Arc on IBM Cloud. I have tried the following two methods but get keep getting an error message that the automation credentials (from the Welcome Kit) are invalid. I am able to see the instances but get the error on trying to login thru Arc.

Since this IBM cloud environment was recently deployed, I have also made sure the automation account was added.
*IBM Documentation

Does anyone have suggestions on what the problem could be? Thanks!

1 Like
13

Hi @pgrochola,

There are a number lot of barriers to putting software with the IBM Cloud environment, especially legal ones, support, upgrades, etc. There is no real benefit for running Arc on the IBM stack compared to elsewhere, you get the same features.

We are working on cloud offering for Arc that save you from having to host Arc yourself. It will be available in the next few weeks.

14

Hi @wwang,

Arc is used by multiple customers using the IBM Cloud and I have also used it myself in a number environments. I assume there must be something wrong with the credentials you are using. The namespace is LDAP (case sensitive) and the user name / password.

15

I would like to add that now the syntax for connecting to IBM Cloud is:
https://.planning-analytics.ibmcloud.com/tm1/api/<folder in which data reside>/
So not the name of the tm1server but the folder where the tm1 data is in, in the shared folder s.