Cognos Higher Education Users Conference - Southwest Region

Birds of a Feather Breakout Session

Administration Opportunities in an Established Cognos Environment

Julian Hooker, Assistant Managing Director, Information Systems,Texas Tech University System

Edgar Luna, Enterprise B.I. Specialist, Enterprise Computing,University of Texas, El Paso

Eddie Smalley

Administration Opportunities in an Established Cognos Environment•Agenda

▫Background▫General and Server Side▫Questions▫Reporting, Packages and Cubes▫Questions▫Security▫Questions▫Discussion

BackgroundAdministration Opportunities in an Established Cognos Environment

Background – TTUS

• Went live with Cognos in 2008▫Part of our ERP implementation of SGHE Banner

• Julian is the Cognos Environment Manager and Reporting Leader▫Julian’s area does not write production reports

• Server administration is centralized, but report writing is decentralized▫Texas Tech is three institutions, Texas Tech

University, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, and Texas Tech University System. There are functional areas in each.

Background - TTUS

AFISM

Institution Research

TTUHSC Human Resources

Budget

Housing

TTU Enrollment Management

TTUHSC Financial Aid

TTU Human Resources

TTUHSC Student

TTUHSC Business Affairs

TTU Office of Research

TTU IT

TTUHSC IT

TTUS IS,Julian Hooker

Other

Background - TTUS

•Licensing▫24 BI Administrator (Framework

Manager/Report Studio/Transformer)▫56 BI Business Authors (Reports Studio)▫2500 Concurrent users of Analysis Studio,

Query Studio, and Event Studio

User Interfaces

Web server

Applications Servers6 Dispatchers and Content ManagerOracle 10g

Database Server

Background TTUS• Architecture• Environments

▫ Dev (virtual)▫ Test (virtual)▫ Prod (physical)

Background - UTEP

•Cognos started as Vice President Business Affairs Office project in 2007.

•Cognos Components:▫Framework Manager▫Transformer▫Query, Report, Analysis and Metric Studio

•Administration is Centralized ▫Reporting Team Administrate all areas

Background - UTEP

•Architecture•Environments

▫Dev▫Test▫Prod

User Interfaces

Web server

Applications Servers2 Dispatchers and Content Manager

Oracle 10g Database Server

Background - UTEP

•Live areas:▫Payroll▫Financial Reporting▫Contracts and Grants▫Budget ▫HR▫College Administrators Officers▫Currently working with all the academic

areas.

Background - IBM

•Architecture Design•Health assessment•Installation perspective.  •No report writing or framework manager

work

General and Server SideAdministration Opportunities in an Established Cognos Environment

General and Server Side

•After Go-live in June 2008▫Occasional system slowness▫Occasional unscheduled downtime▫Slow report performance

•Learning load cycles▫When is the busiest time for the Cognos

servers? Busy time for Texas Tech is the Budget Prep

time and not end of fiscal year/beginning of fall semester

General and Server Side

•Consulting with experts▫Cognos server health check summer 2008▫Cognos server health check summer 2009▫Sungard examination of the TTU Finance

reporting environment 2009▫Cognos reporting expert 2010

General and Server Side

•Cognos Server Health Check▫Focus on server side settings▫Tweaks in configuration or correcting

server side library versions▫Health check can greatly help stability▫Server side changes do not help report

performance by large margins

General and Server Side

•Budget Prep 2009, our first real test▫We were using a current version of Cognos▫Very slow response time in reports▫Reports timing out of the Report service queue▫Learned how to review errors in the logs

Developed methods for sorting through the volumes of data in the log

Using the logs and the Cognos KB to solve problems▫Learned how to monitor the server▫Tweaked the number of Report Service Processes

Affected server stability

General and Server Side

•Next Steps▫Additional hardware▫Increase the number of Report Service processes▫Server Health Check

Found about a dozen item which were mostly minor Reduced Report Service processes

▫Created dedicated batch servers▫Separated batch servers from Content Manager

servers to deal with I/O issues▫Concurrent Query Execution

General and Server Side

•Ongoing▫Daily error report▫Server monitoring

IP and free disk space▫Issue tracking▫Load testing▫Reporting Tools

Most Intensive Cognos Reports Report▫Audit Database▫Logs

General and Server Side

•Preparation for Budget Prep 2010▫Focused on the reporting side▫Looked in Audit Database to gather

statistics from the previous year▫Framework Manage change to minimize

records in the database.▫Database optimization

General and Server Side

•Further changes▫Upgraded to the most current version of

Cognos▫Went all 64 bit

•Note on upgrades▫TTUS’s upgrades have been pretty smooth

Questions

Reporting Packages and CubesAdministration Opportunities in an Established Cognos Environment

Reporting Packages and Cubes

•Report performance

•Reports run perfect the first year, what happen the following years?

▫Student Faculty Evaluation experience.

Reporting Packages and Cubes

•Report performance▫Prompts: The larger the number of

queries the longer it takes to process the prompt page.

▫Options:▫Split the prompts using multiple prompt

pages.▫If you have a pick list prompt with 10,000

entries use Select and search prompts.

Reporting Packages and Cubes

•Report performance

Reporting Packages and Cubes

•Report performance▫Prompts: The larger the number of

queries the longer it takes to process the prompt page.

▫Options:▫Understand your customers needs you may

use Statics choices instead.

Reporting Packages and Cubes

•Report performance

Reporting Packages and Cubes

•Report performance▫Prompts: The larger the number of

queries the longer it takes to process the prompt page.

▫Remember: The data display by a prompt control (Ex. Value prompt) will be truncated at 5000 rows.

Reporting Packages and Cubes

•You report may run with warnings and errors… until….

•Always validate Always•Always take care of warnings

Reporting Packages and Cubes

•You have created 100 reports, What if…•Back up Reports

▫Save a copy to notepad file.

Note: This also helps if you need to move reports between environments.

Reporting Packages and Cubes

•How to maintain packages and cubes

•Only one version in common storage

•Packages▫Publish VS Export / Import

•Cubes▫Automate Update Cube process▫Monitor cube update process (Duration)

Reporting Packages and CubesMs-Dos Batch Content: • echo Creating cube %date% %time%• "D:\cognos\c8\bin\cogtr.exe" –n "D:\Cognos_Data\Cubes\MFR-cube\

RecreateMFRcube.mdl"

Mdl file content:

• EventStart "Build MFR Cube"• OpenPY "D:\Cognos_Data\Cubes\MFR-cube\MFR Cube.pyj"• SignonUpdate "COGDATA" PromptforPassword False UserID "user_id" Password

"password"• savePY "D:\Cognos_Data\Cubes\MFR-cube\MFR Cube.pyj"• EventEnd

Questions

SecurityAdministration Opportunities in an Established Cognos Environment

Security - TTUS

•Decentralized security administration▫With a combination of groups, capabilities,

and permissions, end users can maintain their own security groups

▫Some end users get it and some do not•Sync groups using the SDK

▫Nightly batch jobs

Security - UTEP

•How to maintain Security

•No concurrent licenses▫Create new groups

•Grant Access ▫Cognos roles and groups▫New groups▫Exchange Groups

Security - UTEP

•Your Friend Audit DB.▫Statistics▫License Monitoring▫Users no longer employees

Security - UTEP

•How to know the users membership.▫SDK Applications▫Content Data base

cmreford1 cmobjprops1 cmobjprops33

Questions

Discussion

•Additional Topics▫Upgrades▫Change management▫Getting IT and business areas to talk▫Cognos roles

Thank You

•Julian Hooker▫Julian.Hooker@ttu.edu

•Edgar Luna▫edgar@utep.edu