Setting up a Cognos 8 gateway in IIS 7.0 has been an issue for most administrators. The setup is not straight-forward as in IIS 6, and can also lead to server security being compromised if this is not setup correctly.

CMSYSPROPS This table has the Content Store Version.
CMOBJNAMES This table has the names of all the objects in the content store.
CMOBJPROPS1 Users, Roles \ Group Distribution list and contact information such as Email, phone number, Fax Given name etc are stored in this table.

Running a Cognos report requires several pieces of information. First, it needs to know where the report is located. Then it needs to know if you want to run the report or view saved output, and in which format. If you want it to run the report, what should it do with the output? Save it? Show it? Email it? And finally it will need values for any report prompts.

This is just a sample of the information the Cognos server needs before it can run a report. And so far you are required to use Cognos interfaces to change them. But what if you wanted to run the report and supply all, or some of those values yourself?

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"Cognos Content Analytics is a solution that gives organizations the ability to access and analyze unstructured content that can be found both inside and outside the organization. It turns unstructured content into new business insight through the ability to access, sort and analyze that content, and combine it with structured data and other information resources." - IBM Definition

Cognos Content Analytics aka CCA is quickly being pushed with Cognos and it seems pretty capable on face value.

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Introducing IBM Cognos Express! Breakthrough Reporting, Analysis and Planning for Midsize Companies. A fully integrated, low complexity, easy to buy and deploy solutions.

Computer Weekly has an article on the future of BI titled - 'Where is BI heading?'

Despite all the money invested in IT systems over the years, a study by IBM reveals that two-thirds of UK mid-market businesses still rely on error-prone manual processes when it comes to dealing with data, the lifeblood of any effective 21st century business. It is a problem that business intelligence (BI) tools were supposed to have solved.

Check the article...

My current client has been developing TM1 using the shortcut method. This works well on development boxes but the server admins on the production end at most clients would prefer these to be Windows services.

Here is a quick cheat sheet on doing that...

Vincent McBurney has a great concise article covering the 3 OLAP engines sold by IBM - InfoSphere DataStage, Cognos Transformer, TM1 Turbo Integrator.

Check the original article here