CognosSource

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In this post we describe the installation of the Cognos Samples on an IBM Cognos BI and TM1 platform. 

We will describe how to get the following samples working:

The Go Sales and Great Outdoors databases for compatible and dynamic query mode.

The Go Sales Dynamic Cube samples (requires the previous step).

A selected number of TM1 samples.

A selected set of IBM Cognos PowerCube samples.

Sample packages and content for the above (requires the previous steps).

Prerequisites:

IBM Cognos Business Intelligence 10.2.1

IBM Cognos TM1 10.1

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

A supported database system, in this case Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

The IBM BI Cognos Samples installation file bi_smps_10.2.1_mp_ml.tar.gz

All the above is running on a Windows 64bit environment.

1. Installing the Cognos Samples installation package

Note that the samples come in a separate installation file not included in the product installation file.

Once you have downloaded the samples file (bi_smps_10.2.1_mp_ml.tar.gz) place it on a machine from which the BI server has access to.

Unzipp the installation file twice (7Zip) and locate the installation file for your operation system. In this case "issetup.exe" found in the folder "winx64h".

Run the installation wizard and follow the screens.

When asked for the installation location enter the installation path of the Cognos installation, something like "C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\c10_64".

This will not really install anything, it will just put the samples material in your Cognos BI installation directory. You can check this by going to "\\installationpath\webcontent\samples", so something like "C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\c10_64\webcontent\samples".

If you haven't already done so, open IBM Cognos Configuration and start your BI server.

2. Restore Go Sales and Go Sales Data Warehouse databases

The most logical thing to do first is to restore the Go Sales and Go Sales Data Warehouse sample databases. These databases will serve as the source for the relational and ROLAP sample models and the Dynamic Cube samples. 

Navigate to the samples installation location, something like "C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\c10_64\webcontent\samples".

Open the "datasources" folder and open the "sqlserver" folder.

Locate the files "GOSALESDW.zip" and "GOSALES.zip" and unzip them.

Make sure that you can reach these files from your database server, or copy them to a location that can. First up is the Go Sales Data Warehouse.

Open Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and connect to your database server.

Right-click in the navigation tree on "Databases" and click "Restore Database".

Enter "GOSALES" in the "To database" field.

Click "From device" and then "Add" in the specify backup location screen.

Navigate to the location where you extracted the files "GOSALES.zip" and "GOSALESDW.zip" and select that folder.

Enter the file names "GOSALES".

Click ok till you are back in the "Restore Database" screen and select the backup set for restore.

If you want, you can select under "Options" where you want to put the database on disk.

Click "OK" and wait.

If you are born under a full moon, you should see a display saying "The restore of database 'GOSALES' completed successfully.

You should see the database GOSALES in the databases tree. Browse around a bit to make sure that there are actually tables in them with data.

Repeat the above steps for "GOSALESDW" so everywhere it says "GOSALES", use "GOSALESDW" instead.

If you want you can now clean up the files in the samples folder.

All Parts:

1. Installing the Cognos Samples installation package 2. Restore Go Sales and Go Sales Data Warehouse databases 3. Create data source connections for the samples databases 4. Running the Dynamic Cube Samples 5. Installing the TM1 Samples 6. Create Data Source Connections for TM1 7. Create Data Source Connections for PowerCubes Samples 8. Installing the IBM Cognos Content Store Samples

3. Create data source connections for the samples databases

Next step is to make these data sources known to Cognos. So we are going to create the Data Source Connections for it. 

Go to your Cognos environment and open IBM Cognos Administration.

Go to the Configuration tab and select Data Source Connections and click the "New Data Source" icon.

In the "New Data Source Wizard" enter  the name "great_outdoors_sales", make sure this is exact, if not you will have to change the FM models later on.

Click next.

Select the data source type, in this case "Microsoft SQL Server (SQL 2008 Native Client)".

Select "Configure JDBC connection". If you want to use Dynamic Query Mode (DQM), and you should, enable this.

Click next.

Now you have to enter the connection string. Here you have some options. If you have a default setup it's not difficult.

Enter the SQL server name and the name of the database GOSALES.

The sign-on choice will depend on how you want to log on to your database.

Test the connection.

If your SQL Server instance is configured correct and relatively default, you should only enter the server name and the database name for the JDBC connection.

Test the connection and finalize the wizard.

Repeat the above steps for the database "GOSALESDW" and with "great_outdoors_warehouse" as data source name.

You should now have 2 new entries in your Data Source Connection pane in IBM Cognos Administration.

If you experience any issues with configuring the connection string for the JDBC connection, it can be useful to consult the following pages:

IBM Cognos Proven Practices: The IBM Cognos 10 Dynamic Query Cookbook

Getting error "XQE-DS-0006 Unable to logon to data source" while making a JDBC connection to SQL Server in Cognos 10.1.1

Error "XQE-DS-0006 Unable to logon to data source" testing a JDBC connection to SQL Server 2008

All Parts:

1. Installing the Cognos Samples installation package 2. Restore Go Sales and Go Sales Data Warehouse databases 3. Create data source connections for the samples databases 4. Running the Dynamic Cube Samples 5. Installing the TM1 Samples 6. Create Data Source Connections for TM1 7. Create Data Source Connections for PowerCubes Samples 8. Installing the IBM Cognos Content Store Samples

4. Running the Dynamic Cube Samples

Now you can install the Dynamic Cube samples. Remember that it is required that the previous steps need to be executed successfully before enabling the Dynamic Cubes samples. This means restoring the sample databases and creating the necessary data source connections for it in IBM Cognos Administration. Also make sure that the Cognos user that is going to run the Dynamic Cubes has trusted credentials.

Open IBM Cognos Cube Designer.

Click the "Open Project" button, locate and open the file "model.fmd". You can find this file in the folder "\\installationlocation\webcontent\samples\models\great_outdoors_dynamiccube\sqlserver"

Log on

If correct, you should now see a source and project definition based on the GOSALESDW database.

In the project explorer three, locate the "gosldw_sales" cube, right-click and choose publish.

In the Publish options you can select "Add the dynamic cube to the default dispatcher" and "Start the dynamic cube".

Make sure that the user assigned to the cube in Cognos has trusted credentials. 

Click ok.

Repeat these steps, based on the same model, for gosldw_target and gosldw_sales_and_target

Go to IBM Cognos Administration and select "Data Stores" in the "Status" tab. Verify that the dynamic cube is visible and available.

  That should do it. 

All Parts:

1. Installing the Cognos Samples installation package 2. Restore Go Sales and Go Sales Data Warehouse databases 3. Create data source connections for the samples databases 4. Running the Dynamic Cube Samples 5. Installing the TM1 Samples 6. Create Data Source Connections for TM1 7. Create Data Source Connections for PowerCubes Samples 8. Installing the IBM Cognos Content Store Samples

5. Installing the TM1 Samples

The TM1 Samples consist out of a number of *.zip files. Each *.zip file contains all the files for a TM1 Server.

Locate the sample TM1 files. These can be found under "\\installationpath\webcontent\samples\datasources\cubes\TM1".

Locate and unzip the greatoutdoors.zip file.

Copy the resulting folder to a location that your TM1 server has access to.

Open IBM Cognos Configuration (if you have multiple, make sure you select the right one).

Right click "TM1 Server" in the tree and create a new TM1 server called "greatoudoors" of type "TM1 Server instance".

In the TM1 Server configuration path type the path to the unzipped folder greatoutdoors/datafiles.

In our folder the tm1.cfg was not pointing to the ../datafiles directory. So we just copied it to the datafiles directory. And then pointed the server configuration path to the datafiles directory.

Start the TM1 Server, open IBM Cognos TM1 Architect and verify that the "greatoutdoors" TM1 Server is running.

As this is a joint BI/TM1 installation, the tm1.cfg file needs to be adapted to point to the BI environment.

Add or adjust the ServerCAMURI parameter and make it point to the dispatcher URI of your IBM Cognos BI environment.

Add or adjust the ClientCAMURI parameter and make it point to the gateway URI of you IBM Cognos BI environment.

Leave for the moment the IntegratedSecurityMode to 1  and restart the IBM Server.

Now log in with the Cognos user. This will not work for the moment. Log on with the sample username again (should be admin/apple), go to the security options and make your Cognos user an admin (or other, just make sure that user has at least read rights on the greatoutdoors server components).

Now switch the IntegratedSecurityMode to 5 and restart, it should now be possible to log on with the Cognos user and consult the greatoutdoorsserver.

Repeat the above steps for TM1 Sample *.zip files and don't forget to take another portnumber in the TM1s.cfg file. Do at least the FinanceFact.zip as well.

If you have trouble with the TM1s.cfg file or the integrated security, check the manual or this and this post.

6. Create Data Source Connections for TM1

Next step is to make these data sources known to Cognos. So we are going to create the Data Source Connections for it.

Go to your Cognos environment and open IBM Cognos Administration.

Go to the Configuration tab and select Data Source Connections and click the "New Data Source" icon.

In the "New Data Source Wizard" enter the name "TM1_SalesPlan", make sure this is exact.

Click next.

Select the data source type, in this case "IBM Cognos TM1".

Click next.

Now you have to enter the connection string. Here you have some options. If you have a default setup it's not difficult.

Enter the TM1 administration server name and the name of the server "greatoutdoors".

The sign-on choice will depend on how you want to log on to TM1.

Test the connection.

Finalize the wizard.

Repeat these steps for the at least the FinanceFact server with the connection name "TM1_FinanceFact".

You should now have 2 new entries in your Data Source Connection pane in IBM Cognos Administration.

All Parts:

1. Installing the Cognos Samples installation package 2. Restore Go Sales and Go Sales Data Warehouse databases 3. Create data source connections for the samples databases 4. Running the Dynamic Cube Samples 5. Installing the TM1 Samples 6. Create Data Source Connections for TM1 7. Create Data Source Connections for PowerCubes Samples 8. Installing the IBM Cognos Content Store Samples

7. Create Data Source Connections for PowerCubes Samples

To install the pre-run IBM Cognos PowerCubes, locate the PowerCube files and place them on a location that is accessible from your IBM Cognos environment. If you installed the samples by default this will be \\ibmcognosinstallpath\webcontent\samples\datasources\cubes\PowerCubes\EN\.

Log onto your Cognos environment with admin capabilities and go to IBM Cognos Administration.

Select the tab "Data Source Connections" and click the "New Data Source" button.

As name enter "sales_and_marketing" and click next.

In the specify the connection screen select "IBM Cognos PowerCube" as type and click next.

In the "Windows location" text box type the path to the PowerCube. This will be something like "\\installationpath\webcontent\samples\datasources\cubes\PowerCubes\EN\sales_and_marketing.mdc"

Test the connection.

Finish the wizard.

You should now see a new Data Source Connection in IBM Cognos Administration.

Repeat the above steps for :

employee_expenses

go_accessories

go_americas

go_asia_pacific

great_outdoors_sales_en

  That should do it.

All Parts:

1. Installing the Cognos Samples installation package 2. Restore Go Sales and Go Sales Data Warehouse databases 3. Create data source connections for the samples databases 4. Running the Dynamic Cube Samples 5. Installing the TM1 Samples 6. Create Data Source Connections for TM1 7. Create Data Source Connections for PowerCubes Samples 8. Installing the IBM Cognos Content Store Samples

8. Installing the IBM Cognos Content Store Samples

If you have executed all the previous steps successfully, you can now import the sample Cognos material into the Content Store. What will work and what not will depend on which parts of the previous steps you completed successfully. Also note that the previous steps did not include all possible samples, e.g. you also have samples for Microsoft SSAS Cubes, IBM DB2 Cubing Services etc.

Copy the deployment zip files to the IBM Cognos BI deployment folder. You can find that location in the IBM Cognos Configuration of your BI installation.

Run the import wizard to import the Cognos deployment files.

All done, now you can use the samples. Note that the Framework Manager models and Transformer models are also included in the sample files for when you want to adjust the sample material.

All Parts:

Most of the objects used in IBM Cognos BI are organized in a tree like structure in IBM Cognos Connection. Think of folders, packages, reports and agents. But in fact, Cognos Connection contains much more objects that you don't see by default, like notifications, messages, dashboard components, etc. All these objects are however also contained in the explorer tree of IBM Cognos Connection.

Just as the visible objects, these are organized in the tree in a hierarchical fashion where the parent object acts as a folder. Think of a package object containing a number of reports (which is BAD practice). In the same way other objects contain their child objects as if they were folders.

The only thing you need is the parent search path en treat the paren object as if it was a folder. How?

1. Locate the search path in Cognos Connection

Go to the properties of an object like an agent or dashboard and copy the search path. This will be something like "/content/folder[@name='02 Packages and Models']/folder[@name='Packages']".

2. Compose the URL to consult a folder

To browse to a folder you will use a hyperlink. This hyperlink is composed of 3 parts:

The gateway path to your environment, something like "http://servername/ibmcognos/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll".

The action path defining what you want to do or see. For a folder this can be "?b_action=xts.run&m=portal/cc.xts&m_path=".

The search path of your target parent object, example "/content/folder[@name='02 Packages and Models']/folder[@name='Packages']".

Glued together you get "http://localhost/ibmcognos/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll?b_action=xts.run&m=portal/cc.xts&m_path=/content/folder[@name='02 Packages and Models']/folder[@name='Packages']".

3. Examples

 Objects in an Event "folder":

Objects in a Report "folder":

The Apache Directory Server is part of the Apache Directory project and can be used as an LDAP server or authentication provider with IBM Cognos BI. This can be useful if you don't have a Directory Server in your organization or you just want to install a demo platform. In previous IBM Cognos BI versions you could use the Microsoft Windows NTLM namespace on Windows, but this is not longer supported since Cognos 10.2. Neither is the Series 7 Cognos Access Manager and Sun ONE Directory Server supplied as with pre 8.4 IBM Cognos BI versions.

The Apache Directory project consists of 2 parts, a Directory Server: ApacheDS, and an interface; Apache Directory Studio. The below describes how to use the ApacheDS in combination with IBM Cognos BI 10.2.1. So it assumes you have ApacheDS, Apache Directory Studio V2 and BI 10.2.1 (or other version) installed and in working order. The purpose here was a demo platform, so don't deduct any best practices from this. Don't forget to read the notes at the bottom.

Connect to ApacheDS from Apache Directory Studio

When you open Apache Directory Studio after a fresh install it is an empty canvas.

The first step is to connect to an LDAP server, ApacheDS in this case.

Steps:

Click the "New Connection ..." button to start the New LDAP Connection wizard.

Enter a Connection name, this can be anything, "ApacheDS" in this example.

Enter the Hostname server, "localhost" in this example.

Enter the Port number of Apache DS, by default this is "10389".

Manipulate other options as you please and click "Next"

Enter the authentication parameters, by default the Bind DN is "ui=admin,ou=system" and the Bind password is "secret". Obviously change this for non demo use. Click "Next".

The remaining screens, I left standard. Click "Finish".

Click the picture below to see larger screenshots of the New LDAP Connection wizard steps.

You should end up with something like the below with the default DIT (Directory Information Tree) on the left.

Create group objects

The next step is to set up a group en folder structure that you want to use in Cognos. It is always a good idea to think and design the structure before you start configuring. For this demo platform there is only a single group object of the type "organizationalUnit" within the default domain, this will map and work well in Cognos. 

Steps:

Right click on the default domain "dc=example,dc=com" and select "New" and "New Entry..." to open the New Entry wizard.

Select "Create entry from scratch", later on you can use existing entries as template, and click "Next".

Select the object class "organizationalUnit" in the Object Classes selection screen and click "Next".

For the RDN (Relative Distinguished Name) select "ou" (the name) and type a name, in this case "CognosUsers", but you can pick anything. Below the RDN, you can than see the DN (Distinguished Name) that you can use to reference later on for this part of the DIT. Click "Next"

In the last screen you can enter additional attributes like e.g. a description. Not in the picture. Click "Finish".

Click the picture below to see larger screenshots of the New Entry wizard steps.

You will then end up with a new organizationalUnit with the name CognosUsers in the DIT.

Create users

Now we can add some users to "CognosUsers". The steps are similar to the above:

Right click on "CognosUsers" and select "New" and "New Entry..." to open the New Entry wizard.

Select "Create entry from scratch", later on you can use existing entries as template, and click "Next".

Select the object class "inetOrgPerson" in the Object Classes selection screen and click "Next".

For the RDN select "uid" (the user name) and type a name, in this case "Leonard", but you can pick anything. Keep in mind that by default this will be the log on name in IBM Cognos BI. This can be changed in Cognos Configuration. Do not add any more items here as they will then become part of the DN. This can be useful in some cases but not many. Click "Next".

In the last screen you can again add additional fields. Note that "cn"  (name) and "sn" (surname) have to have values. You can include others as well. You can stick to the default mappings from Cognos Configuration or add your own and add them as Custom properties in Cognos Configuration. Please refer to the pictures below for sample values. Click "Finish".

Click the picture below to have larger screenshots of the different steps:

Don't forget to add an attribute to the users of the type "userPassword" as I did:

You will then end up with the user added to the tree. In the pic below a couple of more users have been added. The process is the same for all.

 That's it for now in Apache Directory Studio.

Configure a namespace in IBM Cognos Configuration

By now there is a working LDAP and some testusers available. The next task is to add ApacheDS as an Authentication provider that can be used in IBM Cognos BI. These are the steps:

Open IBM Cognos Configuration.

Right click on "Authentication" in the tree to add a new namespace.

In the New Resource" windows, enter a name, this can be anything, and an LDAP type, select "LDAP - General default values".

If you click the new namespace, you will see a number of variables on the right, some are prefilled and some are not.

Enter or change the following parameters:

Namespace ID: Can be anything you want, "ApacheDS" in this example.

Host and port: This is the server name and the LDAP port number, "localhost:10389" in this case. If you don't know what to enter, go back to Apache Directory Studio and check the LDAP connection properties.

Base Distinguished Name: This should be the complete DN path up to the class entry-level that you want to include. In this example this is "ou=CognosUsers,dc=example,dc=com". Again if you don't know what to enter, go to the entry properties in Apache Directory Studio.

User lookup: change this to "uid=${userID}". If you want to use something else for authentication then the uid, this wil be different.

Use external identity mapping?: Change to "True".

Bind user DN and password: This should be the complete DN path of a user that will be used to search the namespace. In this case "uid=Admin,ou=CognosUsers,dc=example,dc=com" and the password, which is a user created previously. The exact DN can be found via the entry properties of that user in Apache Directory Server.

  Use bind credentials for search: Change to "True".

Unique identifier: Change to "uid". Make sure each entry than has a uid.

Test the new namespace.

The result should then look something like this:

The last thing is to check all the mappings you want to use. It is important that the names are exactly the same in Cognos Configuration and ApacheDS. By default they map rather well, but check them. Also, if you have more parameters in ApacheDS than available here, you can add them via the custom properties. The mappings available in ApacheDS and mapped here in Cognos Configuration are the things that you can make available in Framework Manager. Can be highly useful when you want to apply data driven security.

Save and restart Cognos

Add users in Cognos

Finally the new namespace can be configured in IBM Cognos Administration. 

Remember that you can only search a namespace when you log on with a user from that namespace. This means that if you want e.g. define an admin, you have to add the everyone group temporarily to the systems administrators group in Cognos Administration. Because you need to be an admin to be able to do so, but no user in your new namespace is an admin.

Log on with a new user.

Go to Cognos Administration and configure a new admin.

Test the new user and delete the everyone group again.

If this is a new install, don't forget to disable anonymous access in Cognos Configuration (and restart).

Notes

A useful dictionary with LDAP related terminology and abbreviations, here.

Intro

The TM1s.cfg file is about as close as it gets to the holy grail of your IBM Cognos TM1 server. Strictly speaking only two parameters need to be configured and those are:

AdminHost and

DataBaseDirectory

These parameters tell what TM1 server to use and where to store the files.

But a quick count learns that in the latest TM1 version (IBM Cognos TM1 10.1.1) there are in total 93 parameters available to configure in the tm1s.cfg file. Many of these parameters can drastically impact the behavior, performance and capabilities of your server. Some of them are not used by default and only in cases where they actually become required. E.g. when you use TM1 in combination with IBM Cognos BI or e.g. when you want to use SSL security. However the majority of the parameters is used, but when not defined by you in the tm1s.cfg file, the default settings are loaded. These default settings are in many cases and environments just fine and do not require changing. But as not a single solution is alike, there are ample opportunities where you just might configure parameters specifically.

So it is absolutely worth it to at least be aware of this and the potential possibilities it brings to optimization and tuning your environment.

TM1s.cfg Parameter Context

The majority of the parameters in the TM1s.cfg file relate to the following topic areas:

Configuration and administration

Performance

Calculation behavior

Connectivity

Logging

End-User capabilities

Especially the performance related parameters are very interesting. The challenge however is that although changing them is really easy, observing in a factual and objective way is not. A closed system in lab conditions that you control completely by yourself is a dream of many.

Each parameter is either required or optional. By default only two parameters are required, it is only when you deviate from a standard setup that more parameters might become required as well, but the majority is optional.

Next to that each parameter is is either dynamic or static. Dynamic simply means that you can change the parameter on the fly while the server is running, the new value will be picked up by the server within 60 seconds after changing it. A static parameter requires you to shut down the server, change or add the parameter and restart the server.

Each version of IBM Cognos TM1 thus far uses a TM1s.cfg file to configure each TM1 server. However, how the TM1s.cfg file looks by default depends a bit on the version of TM1. Below 2 examples, the first is a default TM1s.cfg file from a server running IBM Cognos TM1 version 10.1.1, the second is the default TM1s.cfg file from an IBM Cognos Express version 10.1 server.

View in new window: Default TM1s.cfg file for IBM Cognos TM1 10.1.1 and default TM1s.cfg file for IBM Cognos Express version 10.1 .

At the bottom of his article a complete list of all the tm1s.cfg parameters is compiled for your enjoyment ... or to stress out about. Either way, the list is compiled as an Excel file for easy browsing. Please note that the content is 99% based on the related IBM material. So how you use it or what you do with it is completely up to you.

For the remainder of this article we will briefly discuss a couple of parameters that might be worth configuring in any more or less default installation. Just to give you an idea what it is about.

Interesting Parameters

Two areas that are always interesting in a TM1 environment, are performance and logging. Below a couple of parameters that are worth looking at.

Logging

- The first thing I to do is to change the directory of the log files. By default they are stored in the data directory. If you save them on another location this is more neat and when you would like to perform some manual checks it also reduces the risk that you manipulate by accident another file in the data directory. Parameters:

LoggingDirectory

RawStoreDirectory

- When you decide to enable logging, you can also play a bit with how fast you can manipulate and consult the data. So if you just need to capture a small set of events, you can play with the how often data is written to the final log files and how often a new file is created. Parameters:

AuditLogOn

AuditLogMaxFileSize

AuditLogMaxTempFileSize 

AuditLogUpdateInterval

- Don't forget that you can also create a server log with the security activity data. Parameters:

ServerLogging

Performance

- By default TM1 will always check a cube first for standard consolidations and then for rule-based calculations. When you have a large cubes with many consolidations and all consolidations are rule-based, you can skip the check for standard consolidations. Parameter:

AllRuleCalcStargateOptimization

- TM1 uses either an ARRAY or TREE method to perform consolidation optimization. ARRAY is used by default and is optimal when you have dimensions with many consolidations and with little sparse data. The TREE method may be more optimal when you have many leaf elements that contain sparse data and little consolidations. One to try out. Parameter:

ViewConsolidationOptimizationMethod

ViewConsolidationOptimization

- By default TM1 locks subsets when used for other pending requests. You can change this behaviour so TM1 will release locks for other requests. This can work well when many users access the same subset and the subset has many elements. Parameter:

SubsetElementBreatherCount

- When you use a 64-bit Windows OS on your server, Windows will perform memory optimization in such a way that memory blocks that are inactive for a long time are paged to disk. In many cases this will generate undesired waiting times for users as user behavior in many TM1 application areas is of a non continuous nature. Parameter:

LockPagesInMemory

The Complete Parameter List

This file contains the complete list of all parameters and info that can be configured in the tm1s.cfg file of an IBM Cognos TM1 10.1.1 server. You can download an Excel version here and a *.pdf version here. The file contains the following information about each parameter:

Parameter name

Dynamic or static

Optional or not

Default value (if any)

Parameter format

A short description

Each information technology software vendor talked, a lot, about Big Data in 2012 and it doesn't seem to be a temporary thing. All major players like SAS, Teradata, Informatica, Oracle, IBM and many others don't cut short on making as much noise as possible about Big Data.

Teradata claims that in 2020 the amount of digital information will be 35 Billion Terrabyte gigabytes. That's 4.6 Terabyte per projected person in the world in 2020. I have no problem believing that. The challenge Big Data wants to answer is on how to do something useful with that data.

So is this just a lot of marketing mambo jumbo or are we really on to something?

Big Data Definition

The good thing is that almost everyone agrees to when you can label your information challenge as "Big Data":

The data volume is massive and a challenge to handle, say Tera- and Petabytes.

The change rate of that data is high, real-time, or near real-time.

The data can have many different formats and/or formats.

Analytics insight is required in a timely fashion.

So the challenge with Big Data is managing highly volatile massive and diverse volumes of data intelligently in an actionable time span.

An Ambitious Example

Let's run ahead of ourselves and illustrate with a possible example. Suppose Walmart wants to improve the customer shopping experience and be able to target customers on the fly with the right offering. Ten years ago you would ask a marketing agency to perform a survey on a statistically viable but small set of respondents. The agency would present the results and Walmart would take the decision to e.g. introduce discounts on Friday or rearrange some products in the shelves for the next 6 months. Today you would do the same but using online data. But suppose you want to do this for each individual customer while visiting the store 24/7?

How would this go? Let’s assume Walmart knows the customer, has a way of tracking the customers' behavior in the store and uses electronic shelf labels. The target is to be able to highlight the right product, the right promotion or the right price specifically mapped on that individual customer.

After some analysis you will end up with a massive amount of data that contains the history of a customer, the shelf layout of each shop, the price of each product, pictures and characteristics of products, the stock status of each product, demographics of the customer, the location of the customer in the store, maybe the Facebook data of the customer, weather conditions, the music played at the store, promotions and much much more (Maybe even facial recognition data that indicates the customers’ mood when he/she realizes all of this ;-)). New products and customers are added daily, shelf layout and stock position varry constantly. The result is an enormous amount of data, potentially unstructured that changes constantly.

Based on this you want to perform an advanced individual real-time market basket analysis thousands of times per minute. Challenge? Mhh.

I browsed around on the web and truth must be told not many reliable sources can be found, but I estimate the total chunk of data that you will use in the above scenario on a continuous basis can be estimated to be potentially well over 10 Terabytes if you go all the way. What we do know is that Walmart handles more than 1 million customer transactions every hour, loaded into databases covering more than 2500 terabytes. 

Solution Proposed

The solution to solve these types of massive data challenges demands a serious bit of resources and kit.

You need massive computing and storage power

You need an intelligent engine that can work the data

You need an interface to use the results

You need the people to work the above

I've taken a look on how IBM solves this and their offering is in essence a combination of hardware (like Netezza, which I like a lot), an information management system (various components of the InfoSphere suite) and analytics capabilities, which can be the sum of Cognos BI, TM1 and SPSS, and various other components.The other traditional venders follow the same logic, take what you have and adapt and bundle to meet Big Data challenges. 

So on the one hand it seems just a a lot of marketing talk for things that already exist but on the other hand you can argue that no single solution exists to tackle a Big Data challenge. Both are probably true, but this does not negate the fact that we are becoming part of a data collecting society where the challenge to work this data is very real. Next to that, although vendors are bundling various software bits and pieces, it is also true that hard- and software capabilities did increase and mature in recent years. Think in-memory technologies, think solutions like Netezza, think Cloud storage, etc.

All Ready

The biggest challenges in these type of offerings will most likely not be the amount of data, nor the change rate or the immediate responses required, not even applying some intelligent analytics on it, but the ability to integrate different sources and different formats.

Data like voice in different languages or the interpretation of images is underway but nowhere near is it production ready on a massive scale for a variety of applications.

The integration from different sources has technical solutions, but sources like popular social media sites pop up and gain massive popularity very quickly. That doesn't make it any easier either.

But those are technical challenges, the biggest challenge for an organisation will be to define what benefits can be derived from using Big Data. It is obvious that Big Data will not come cheap, so a solid business case is crucial.

In Short

If you missed part 1, you can find it here: What's new in IBM Cognos BI 10.2.1 (Part 1/2)

For the Modeler

IBM Cognos Framework Manager

The facts are the facts. Four new governors are available when using DQM to control the performance and execution of queries:

Context sensitive join selection: Controls the computation of join paths for a query in a star schema grouping that does not contain a fact. 

Local cache policy: Controls the level of queries for which reusable cursors are created.

Cursor mode: Controls how long the resources required by a query are retained before they are released.

Master-detail optimization: Controls whether detail query caching occurs for a relational master-detail query.

Two new properties, Transaction Access Mode and Transaction Statement Mode, are available to specify whether a data source is accessed in read-only or read/write mode for a query subject that is based on a stored procedure. This was already possible when using Event Studio, now also in all other studios.

IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes

The Dynamic Cubes story with IBM Cognos 10.2.1 is a story of gaining maturity. Nothing mind boggling, mostly things you just expect. Now they are included.

Period aggregation is added, much like in Transformer. You can now use first, last and current period aggregations.

A new security setup is available where security rules can be stored in a relational database on a more granular level. This applies now for member level security, dimension security and member attribute security. If the cube structure doesn’t change the cube doesn’t require a restart when security rules change. Still no TM1 though.

The process to build and generate a dynamic cube is slightly optimized. The auto-design feature should work better and make better use of data sampling for generating hierarchies. A new performance issues tab is included to identify potential performance issues.

There are also improvements on the manageability of dynamic cubes. Within Cognos Administration you can now manage, monitor and configure all dynamic cubes available in the Cognos environment. And from within the administration console it is also possible to deploy dynamic cubes that are mirrored across multiple report servers for load  balancing purposes. Oh and Metadata from IBM InfoSphere Warehouse Cubing Services can be imported.

IBM Cognos Dynamic Query Analyzer

Nothing really new, but the aggregate advisor now also works when you run BI via HTTPS.

IBM Cognos Transformer

Nothing really new either, but the encryption algorithm to encrypt passwords has been changed. I really would like to know the story behind that one. Models are updated automatically, but there is no backwards compatibility, which seems logic by the nature of the change.

For the Administrator

In general 10.2.1 includes multiple small fixes and improvements that should have a positive performance impact on report and query generation. Next to that there are some specifics worth knowing.

The Gateway

When you install a 64-bit Cognos version, the 64-bit version of the gateway is installed by default, so no manually moving around of files anymore.

My Folders

My Folders can now be deployed and saved on an individual user basis. This is much easier then saving and deploying the complete content store. Next to that, the My Folders can be archived. This is done by adding a repository connection to a namespace (folder) and then add the My Folders to the content archival task.

Multi Tenant

New features for managing multi tenant environments are available and can be managed from Cognos Administration.

Deployment and removals should be easier and have more options to include content like share public content.

Default account profiles can be linked with a specific tenant

Kill active sessions on tenant level

Export of usage and content store data linked by tenant

External Object Store

Report output can now be stored on a drive outside the content store. The idea behind this is improved performance for the action on the Content Store itself, I presume.

What did not change?

Thus far it seems that Cognos Insight, Cognos for Microsoft Office, Event Studio, Analysis Studio, Query Studio, Metric Designer and Studio, Map Manager and PowerPlay did not change in any way. So the effort went where it was most needed, except for Map Manager, I really would like some easy to use interface for spatial aware reporting and analytics with fancy visualizations (read about our seating plan fiasco).

More

The above basically discussed the changes and new features, but let’s not forget that this release also includes a rather substantial list of bug fixes that can be found here on the IBM website: IBM Cognos Business Intelligence 10.2.1 Fix List. 

Conclusion

Below you can find a logical component overview of all the components that come with IBM Cognos BI. Please note that what you can and can't use will depend on your version and available licenses. Most of it is however true for IBM Cognos BI 10 all versions. Also note that this is not an architecture schema or an exact representation, it is just a reference that might just come in handy.

Click here for a full sized picture or here for a *.pdf version, or just click the image below.

What's new in IBM Cognos BI 10.2.1: Synopsis

This post describes what's new in IBM Cognos Business Intelligence 10.2.1 compared to version 10.2. IBM Cognos 10.2.1 is more than just a maintenance upgrade. It is not a revolution either, but apart from a long list of fixes it includes a comprehensive set of well thought out changes and new features. Many things did change in only a minor way, but at the same time it are those tiny changes that will make a huge difference in the day-to-day business. 

Some things pop out though. In this release it is clear that IBM is serious about improving the in-memory capabilities of the platform combined with improving and enhancing the ROLAP options for the Dynamic Cubes with the Dynamic Query Engine. With PowerPlay, TM1, legacy ROLAP and DB2 Cubing Services already lined up in the stack, it is more than obvious that IBM puts its money on a dimensional OLAP style of reporting preferably in-memory. Being a TM1 fan, I don’t necessarily see the point of this, but if you don’t have TM1 this is definitely the functionality to look into.

Next to improved ROLAP this release offers many improvements in the more recent components of the BI suite like Workspace (Advanced), Mobile and Active Reports with small changes that all make a lot of sense. I am always hoping for more fancy visualizations like now included for Active Reports with extensible visualizations, but maybe that’s for the next one.

But it must be said, given all the improvements and fixes, this release is worth upgrading to. This article then discusses briefly all the changes and new features of IBM Cognos Business Intelligence 10.2.1 compared to 10.2.

For Users and Builders

IBM Cognos Report Studio

Active Reports One of the most interesting new features in Cognos BI 10.2.1 are the extensible visualizations for Active Reports. We don’t have to lie about it, cause we all love Cognos, but in the visual department we were a bit stuck in terms of trendiness. The extensible visualizations are visualizations like treemaps, heatmaps, packed bubble visualizations, and network diagrams. The visualizations actually come from the IBM website AnalyticsZone and are not available by default. An administrator must import visualizations so they become available in the visualization gallery in Cognos Administration. I’m very curious to see how they will perform. IBM promises that they will have nicer animations and more interactive features. And the best of all, the whole thing is called the IBM Rapidly Adaptive Visualization Engine (RAVE!). Is it wrong that I think that’s cool? Goodbye 1995, hello 2013!

Download the extensible visualizations via https://www.analyticszone.com:

 Import as administrator into IBM Cognos Administration:

 How it looks in IBM Cognos Report Studio when making an Active Report:

How it looks on the page canvas in IBM Cognos Report Studio:

Digging further on Active Reports, they always were a bit of a typical “good idea, but poorly executed”. The *.mht format was simple, robust, portable and easy, but in reality files were heavy, slow, incompatible and limited. I understand the line of thought and I really do see the advantages of the concept and the specific design choice. But at the same time, I’m still not convinced this is the way to go (mobile). Anyhow, in this release multiple tweaks are included that should improve performance both with the Cognos Mobile app. as in the browser. The most important tweak is probably that active reports are compressed; this will work well for active reports containing a lot of data. IBM, just a suggestion, make a feature where you can set a timer per user so that after 20pm they cannot access active reports via their tablet anymore :-).

Data Container and Query naming

We all know it and we all did it. Drag and drop stuff onto the canvas and create queries. Eventually you end up with List1, List2, List14, Query1, Query2, etc, not knowing what’s what anymore. Now you can immediately specify a meaningful name and link a query with a data container. Small stuff but very handy for report builders.

Bursting New burst options are available that should improve performance; they can be configured via the advanced report options in Cognos Connection.

IBM Cognos Report Studio and IBM Cognos Workspace Advanced (Business Insight Advanced)

The below are features that are both true for Report Studio and Workspace Advanced. These are all minor changes, but they are all things that will make our lives easier. These types of changes indicate that IBM does take into account customer feedback. Or at least, that is what I choose to believe.

Crosstab values as percentages

In a crosstab on dimensional data, you can now show values as percentages of totals (rows, columns or both). Nough said.

Shared sets

Again only for dimensional data (trend?). Previously, when you defined a set, you could not reuse it in other reports, really annoying at times when you were experimenting. Now you can. You can choose the shared set as defined (Run Time) or as defined until the definition is refreshed (Design Time).

Better Text Filters

Now relational filters can be created based on a pattern, rather than an actual value. You can use, “starts with”, “ends with”, “contains” or “matches SQL pattern”. Needless to say that these types of filters will probably not be extremely beneficial for performance. So you really need a reason, like filtering off a big chunk that was degrading performance even more.

Excel

For people not using TM1 (shame) but with a healthy appetite for Excel, you can choose whether repeating crosstab cells or grouped list columns will be grouped upon export, or whether the values will be repeated for each row or column.

IBM Cognos Workspace (Business Insight)

Usually my advice for Workspace is that an experienced developer creates all the different objects in Report Studio and then assembles the dashboards in Workspace. So end-users just open and use a finished dashboard and don’t change things themselves. This is not because I don’t want users to do things themselves, but because Business Insight was in my opinion rather “brittle” with frustrated end-users as a result. And we all know that your day will be from hell, if you have to face rightfully frustrated users. The improvements made to Workspace seem to support this approach a bit, as the changes, however small, might just give the power back to the end-user.

Drilling and filtering on the same but not the same data

Previously if you had 2 identical data items with a different name that you wanted to filter (e.g. Customer and Client), well .. you know what that meant. Now however you can filter on both data items together. In the same lane of trouble, if you previously had a filter set on e.g. a time period and after an update that period was not available anymore, you received a nice error. Now however you can automatically refresh filter values. Continuing down the lane, drilling up and down in workspaces became much more logic as formatting and nesting characteristics are retained. And the last improvement is added context with the automatic chart recommendations.

IBM Cognos Mobile

I think Mobile BI is still an ongoing process, both in terms of exploiting the potential of mobile characteristics as the technical challenges. With IBM Cognos BI 10.2.1 there are no revolutions with Cognos Mobile, but rather evolutions making it easier and nicer to work with.

On the one hand there are some changes to improve performance. Multi-page reports can be retrieved page by page, reducing waiting time and report downloads can be paused and restarted. Next there are some nice enhancements increasing usability and interactivity. iPad users can configure their connection by clicking a URL (this means we can have users apply a configuration with a QR-code?), and the default pinch gesture to zoom in and out can finally be used properly. More general there is an enhanced support for HTML reports like page layout, prompt controls, drill-through actions and additional fonts. At the same time everything should work more touch-friendly. Finally for administrators it becomes easier to audit mobile usage behavior.

IBM Cognos Statistics

IBM Cognos Statistics is no longer part of Cognos BI. Most reports will still run as the specific statistics objects are replaced with an image. But in reality report adaptations might be required.

The IBM Cognos TM1 Operations Console is an interface on top of TM1 Top. The main advantage is that you can manage different servers from a more user-friendly single console in your web browser. 

If you don't have the TM1 Operations Console installed yet, check this post: IBM Cognos TM1 Operations Console Installation.

TM1 Operations Console Setup

If you have the TM1 Operations Console installed, you can browse to the console via your web browser via "http://server:port/tm1operationsconsole" where "server" is you server name and "port" the server port, usually 9510 by default.

Before you can start using the TM1 Operations Console you need to set up an "Operations Group". Within each "Operations Group" you can then add multiple TM1 servers and TM1 application servers. An "Operations Group" should be a logical grouping of servers, e.g. a sales group and a finance group or a development group and a production group.

The process of adding an "Operations Group" and servers is straightforward. Create an "Operations Group" and then add the servers and applications servers via right-click in the tree (Click the image for a larger view).

TM1 Operations Console Configuration

Once the servers are added you will see the default information pane with the Server Health Status, Monitors and Logging. For each server you have an additional pane, that can be shown next to each other.

Now you can do some configuration to manage the operation as you want it. The most important are the configuration parameters for a server. The following can be set:

Log Period (sec): The time interval in seconds between updates being written to the log file.

Log Append: If set to True new logs will be appended to the log file. If set to False the existing log file will be overwritten.

Top Refresh Period (sec): The time interval in seconds before the data is refreshed.

Top Tolerance Factor (sec): If set to 0, data is new, if set to 1 or more, this depicts the number of seconds data can be held before a new polling.

Top Time Out (sec): Number of seconds the console will attempt to connect to the server before a time out.

Memory Stats Refresh Period (min): The period in minutes the console waits before refreshing the data.

Memory Stats Tolerance Factor (min): If set to 0, data is new, if set to 1 or more, this depicts the number of seconds data can be held before a new polling.

Memory Stats Time Out (min): Number of minutes the console will attempt to connect to the server before a time out.

Next to the configuration parameters you can also set some filters to narrow down the logging and you can schedule the logs.

If you want to use the performance monitoring features you have to enable this first in TM1 Architect, "Start Performance Monitor":

  TM1 Operations Console Monitoring

Once you have done your setup you can basically do and monitor everything you know from TM1 Top and a bit more (I think), in short:

Server: Number of threads, wait threads and status.

Memory usage with a split for views, calculations, feeders and data

Thread information

Sandboxes, active and queued

Web applications (needs config in the web/application server)

You can also export the log files. Again this looks familiar.

  Notes

In the TM1s.cfg file you can set the "MaskUserNameInServerTools" parameter. If this parameter is set to FALSE, user names are displayed in the TM1 Operations Console by default. If this parameter is set to TRUE, user names are masked out for non administrator users. Users with administrator privileges can always see the user names if they want.

This was tested using the Chrome web browser. The operation is not super smooth and some improvements can be made to make life easier. This is not a deal breaker as managing multiple TM1 Top screens at the same time is hardly user-friendly either.

You can kill processes and sandbox queues. You can basically kill what you can/could kill with TM1 Top.

You can download and import the configuration settings via the import and download option. The data are stored in the tm1operationsconsole.xml file.

Just as with TM1 Top, performing intensive logging will have a performance impact.

You can choose between basic and enhanced monitoring. This can be configured in the OpsConfig.xml file.

Conclusion

This post is taken from an old blog that I don't update anymore. Please note we are talking June 2011 and are still in a TM1 9.5 and BI 8 world. I noticed many people still consulting the article, therefore I retake it here. Here we go ....

The manual is not that clear about what exactly you should do in order to be able to use C8 or C10 security with TM1. One thing I know is that if you want to use BI or want to use Contributor, you have to. I see BI as a logical extension of TM1 so I never use the TM1 security anymore in its standalone form.

Now before we start make sure you have the following in working order:

An installation of C8 or C10 BI that is working (working as in tested properly, installing it without errors does NOT qualify as working)

The same for your TM1 server

A TM1 server model running

With my limited social skills I will try to explain the problem as I understand it:

TM1 has its own security that works completely independent from BI

But in order to access the Cognos groups and users from within  TM1, TM1 needs to know where to find those and TM1 needs to gain access to them

Gaining access means that you have a user that has access to BI AND to TM1, and this is the pickle…

As you install a new model, the model doesn’t know that BI exists and vice versa

So the following is my method that works for me, maybe there are others, if so feel free to share.

1. Open the Tm1s.cfg file of your model and manipulate the following parameters:

- Change “IntegratedSecurityMode” to “5″.

- Add the following parameters where the URL’s are taken from Cognos Configuration:

ServerCAMURI=http://TM1WORLD:9300/p2pd/servlet/dispatch ClientCAMURI=http://TM1WORLD:80/cognos10/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll

- My file then looks like this:

[TM1S] IntegratedSecurityMode=5 SecurityPackageName=Kerberos ServerName=”TM1World” DataBaseDirectory=C:\TM1\TM1World AdminHost=TM1WORLD PortNumber=99999 Protocol=TCP Language=ENG UseSSL=F GroupsCreationLimit=1000 EnableSandboxCache=T LoggingDirectory=C:\TM1\TM1World\Logs ServerCAMURI=http://TM1WORLD:9300/p2pd/servlet/dispatch ClientCAMURI=http://TM1WORLD:80/cognos10/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll CAMPortalVariableFile=portal\variables_TM1.xml SkipSSLCAMHostCheck=TRUE ClientPingCAMPassport=900 ViewConsolidationOptimization=T MessageCompression=T UseStargateForRules=F

This way we make TM1 think it is linked to BI. Save the file and close it.

2. Restart your server, open architect, double-click on your server. Your are now presented with the C8/C10 login screen.

3. Crucial here is that you do not log in with the TM1 default (user:admin, pw: nothing or apple) but with your C8/10 admin user/pw.

4. No worries, because what just happened is that TM1 took note of you trying to log in. This allows us now to log in with the default user admin  and then change the settings of our C8/C10 user. So if you got an error, that means you are doing the right thing.

5. Before doing so we first have to change the “IntegratedSecurityMode”  to 1 making TM1 believe it is alone in the world. Change the parameter, save the file and restart the server.

6. Log in via architect. You will now be presented with the TM1 legacy security login screen, login with admin. Go to the “client/group properties” again.  As you will notice our failed login is visible and we can change the settings of it. Now make it a proper TM1 administrator.

7. Next, open the Tm1s.cfg file again and change the “IntegratedSecurityMode”  back to 5, thus stating that we are going to use C8/C10 security.