We’re building an BI platform and have been working with the SP5, Patch 11 version. At that time we also loaded a copy of Crystal Reports 2013 on the server using the same version, SP5, Patch 11. However, management asked us to upgrade the CR 2013 to SP7, Patch 1. We did that but it caused our SIA to stop and it wouldn’t start. We backed Patch 1 off and the SIA now appears to be stable. I’ve never come across this before but my gut tells me that since the two products share .dll files as well as other things the versions should be the same. We should either have SP5, Patch 11 of both BI 4.1 & CR 2013 on the server or SP7, Patch 1 on the server.
I know as a general rule we always matched the SP and FP of our BI server and Crystal Reports. But generally (in the past). We could upgrade the server (yes we have a version of CR on the server), then upgrade CR at a later date, just not using it until we had it the same version as the server.
We have always done the same thing. When we update the server installation, we also update Crystal Reports to the same version.
The only time we have had different version in play is if the patches we were applying we mainly for the server and not Crystal Reports. The report developers might have an older version on their computers than what we had on the server but we always kept the software installed on the servers in sync.
Today, that includes Crystal Reports for Enterprise also.
This is exactly what I’ve been telling management but alas, they didn’t listen. We’re in the process of uninstalling CR 2013 SP7. After complete we’ll install CR 2013 SP5, Patch 11 to match what our BI 4.1 platform is.
Like you, I recall having the CR versions the same, or even lower versions than our BO/BI environments but the CR version has never been higher. The begged to differ so I did what I was asked to do. Needless to say the outcome was exactly what I expected.
I appreciate everyone’s input. It has solidified my thinking.
In our production server we have never installed Crystal reports and had never had a problem. If you need to open crystal reports I suggest to install on another server and avoid any issues.
Primarily because over the years it has provided us problem resolution assistance. The cost of the number of CR licenses that would need to be rolled out to those of us who administer is replaced by having one license on our server. Always looking for ways to cut costs in our company and every dollar counts.
The primary benefit is that you often get better error messages when you run the report in Crystal Reports Designer on the server than what you see in Business Objects such as BI Launch Pad. When you get a “Failed to open the connection” error in BI Launch Pad, you can often get the real cause of the error by running the report in Crystal Reports Designer on the server.
(BOB member since 2008-10-15)
(BOB member since 2007-03-16)
