cognos higher education users conference - southwest region birds of a feather breakout session...
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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
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