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STUDY GUIDES FOR THE COG-122 (BI0-122): IBM CERTIFIED COGNOS 8 BI ADMINISTRATOR EXAM 1.

What is the reason for creating a database Signon Ans. To avoid a situation when multiple users access d to enter database credentials every time they need When a database signon is created, users and signon can be specified. in Cognos 8? the database engine and nee to run a report. groups that can access the

2. How to move an entire Cognos 8 installation from one environment to another? Ans. Use Cognos Connection to move the Content Store database from one database engine to another. An administrator can export entries and objects from IBM Cognos 8 to a D eployment archive file. It can be imported on any other cognos 8 installation. It is also possible to move content store using native database backup a nd recovery engines or an ETL process. The following databases can be used as a Cognos Cognos Store: Cognos Con tent Database, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, IBM DB2 and Sybase. 4. How to upgrade Reportnet report specifications and perform consistency check in Cognos Connection? Ans. Use the Report Upgrade Task in cognos connection. Go to the IBM Content Administration, then go to Configuration and use t he 'New Content Maintenance' button on the toolbar. A pop-up window will appear with two options: New Consistency Check and New Report Upgrade 5. In Cognos Connection, what are the portlets used for Content handling ? Ans. Content handling portlets in Cognos Connection: Cognos Navigator - Browse folders, show the folder hierarchy Cognos Conn ection, reports, and other entries Cognos Search - Search for IBM Cognos reports and other entries Cognos Viewer - View and interact with IBM Cognos reports and other entr ies 6. What might be a reason for copying a user profile? Ans. An administrator may want to copy a user profile in the following situation s: A user changes names and an account is set up in the new name. A user moves to another namespace or when namespaces change. 7. What is a shortcut and what happens when the target is renamed? Ans. Shortcut is a pointer to another entry such as a report, report view, folde r, job, agent, page, or URL. If the source entry was deleted or moved to another location, the shortc ut icon changes to indicate a broken link. In this case, the shortcut doesn't work anymore as it refers to the targ et object's original name. 8. What are the IBM Cognos 8 user permissions Ans. IBM Cognos 8 user permissions Read - it allows users to: - View all the properties of an entry, including the report specificatio n, report output and properties. - Create a shortcut to the objects. Write - it allows users to:

Create Modify Delete Modify Create

entries in a container (packages and folders for instance) properties of an entry an entry the specification of a report new outputs for a report

Execute - it allows users to: - Process and run an entry, such as reports, agents and metrics. - For data sources, connections and signons, the entries can be used to retrieve data from a data provider, however the user cannot read the database in formation directly. - Permit someone else to use their credentials. Set policy - allows users to read and update security settings, view and change per missions of a Cognos 8 object Traverse - allows users to view the contents of a folder or a package, and view g eneral properties of the container (such as name, description, creation date, an d so on) 9. Mail server configuration Ans. The mail server for Cognos is configured in IBM Cognos Configuration. To provide Cognos 8 content access to the mail server and ability to sen d notifications, go to Data Access -> Notification. In order to send mail notifications from Cognos, it is required to defin e the SMTP mail server, provide account name and password and choose a default s ender. 10. How to set up email report distribution in Cognos? Ans. IBM Cognos 8 allows to schedule the distribution of the reports so that use rs receive the reports on a given time basis. Recipients must have read permissions for the report and traverse permis sions for the folder where the report is located. When the report is attached to an email, it is no longer secured by the IBM Cognos security system. The email recipients are selected from a list which contains users, grou ps, roles and defined distribution lists. If an administrator wants to email a report to a recipient which is not part of the Cognos security system, a new Contact needs to be created in Cognos Administration. 11. What might be a reason for creating a report view by an administrator Ans. A report view uses the same report specification as the source report but h as different properties and allows to apply different report settings without mo difying the report itself. The properties that can be adjusted are: run options, prompt values, sch edules, delivery methods, internalization options and output formats. Creating a report view does not change the original report. 12. What is the scope of a package based drill through? Ans. When a packaged based drill through is set up, a report is available to any report based on the source package. When setting up a drill through, first specify the scope to use in the p ackage and then, a report to use as the drill through target. The scope of the package based drill through represents the target repor t in the drill definition that is shown to the user, based on the items they hav e in the source report. The package-based drill through is set up in Cognos Connection.

13. How do the components in IBM Cognos 8 architecture communicate? Ans. The IBM Cognos 8 architecture uses the following technologies: Extensible Markup Language (XML) Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) Web Services Definition Language (WSDL) This ensures that the platform is highly scalable, available and open. The communication between IBM Cognos 8 components is SOAP on HTTP protoc ol. 14. What are the architecture tiers in IBM Cognos 8? Ans.IBM Cognos 8 architecture is compound of three tiers: Tier 1: Webserver - contains IBM Cognos 8 gateways Tier 2: Applications - represented by IBM Cognos 8 server applications w ith Dispatcher and Content Manager Tier 3: Data - Content store, query databases and metric stores connecte d via API or JDBC 15. IBM Cognos 8 services overview Ans. IBM Cognos 8 installs one dispatcher on each computer by default. Each disp atcher has a set of associated services, listed below: Agent service - runs agents Batch report service - manages background requests to run reports and pr ovides output Content Manager service - performs object manipulation functions in the content store Data movement service - manages the execution of data movement tasks (ET L), such as Builds and JobStreams, created in Data Manager Designer Delivery service - sends emails to an external SMTP server on behalf of other services Event management service - creates, schedules, and manages event objects that represent reports, jobs, agents, content store maintenance, deployment imp orts and exports, and metrics Job service - runs jobs by signaling the monitor service to run job step s in the background Log service - captures log messages generated by the dispatcher and othe r services Metric Studio service - provides the Metric Studio user interface for mo nitoring and entering performance information Migration service - manages the migration from Cognos Series 7 to IBM Co gnos 8 Monitor service - manages the monitoring and execution of tasks that are scheduled, submitted for execution at a later time or run in background. It als o creates history objects and manages failover and recovery. Planning job service - manages communications with the Planning Job Serv er subsystem. Planning web service - manages communications with Contributor Web and C ontributor Add-in for Excel users. Planning administration console service - manages communication with the Contributor Administration Console Planning data service - manages communications for real-time reporting f rom Contributor plan data in IBM Cognos 8. Presentation service - transforms generic XML responses from another ser vice into output format, such as HTML or PDF. Presentation service processes the request when a user launches saved output in Cognos Connection and views it in Cognos Viewer. Report data service - manages the transfer of report data between IBM Co gnos 8 and applications that consume the data, such as IBM Cognos 8 Go! Office a nd IBM Cognos 8 Go! Mobile. Report service - manages interactive requests to run reports and provide

s output for Cognos Connection. The service (is responsible for generating HTML pages) System service - defines the Business Intelligence Bus API compliant ser vice used to obtain application wide IBM Cognos 8 configuration parameters. In Cognos Administration, the services listed are only services that are enabled in Cognos Configuration. 17. What are the supported application servers by Cognos 8? Ans. By default, IBM Cognos 8 installs and uses Tomcat as the default applicatio n server, however other servers are also supported: BEA WebLogic Server IBM WebSphere Application Server Oracle Application Server Red Hat JBoss SAP NetWeaver Sun Java Systems Application Server (for Windows, Linux, and Solaris ope rating systems only) The application server (Tomcat for instance) acts as a servlet container for Cognos 8 presentation services. 18. What is the definition of the Application tier? Ans. IBM Cognos 8 BI Application tier (2. tier) contains the Content Manager ser vlet and dispatcher servlet. The applications tier runs requests (reports, analyses and queries for i nstance), that are forwarded by a gateway. The Application Layer also renders the IBM Cognos Connection and Metric Studio interfaces. 19. How to ensure failover when configuring Content Manager? Ans. A Cognos 8 BI installation may include one or more Content Managers, each o n a different computer. One Content Manager computer is active and one or more C ontent Manager computers are on standby. The standby Content Manager computers are for failover in case of a soft ware or hardware failure. For failover, it is important to ensure that the authentication provider s need the be set up in the same way an all machines hosting Content Managers. When the default active Content Manager fails, the system automatically switches to a Standby Content Manager and requests are directed to it. 20. Cognos Application Firewall configuration to access a report on a remote com puter? Ans. IBM Cognos Application Firewall (CAF) analyzes and validates HTTP and XML r equests before they are processed by servers. Requests rejected by the firewall are stored in a logfile (cogserver.log by default). All computers where IBM Cognos 8 Application Tier Components are i nstalled must have the same firewall settings. To change CAF settings start IBM Cognos Configuration, in the Explorer w indow, go to Security and click IBM Cognos Application Firewall. Then go to the Properties window and set the appropriate values for Enab le CAF validation. In order to access a report on a remote computer, the name of the remote computer must be added to the list of a valid domains or hosts. 22. What are gateways in the Cognos Webserver tier? Ans. The IBM Cognos 8 Web server tier (tier 1.) contains one or more gateways. W eb communication in IBM Cognos 8 is typically through gateways, which reside on one or more Web servers. A gateway is an extension of a Web server program that transfers information from the Web server to another server. For failover, the gateway can be configured to know the location of mult

iple dispatchers. Upon receiving a request, the IBM Cognos 8 gateway does the following: encrypts passwords to ensure security extracts information needed to submit the request to an IBM Cognos 8 ser ver attaches environment variables for the Web server adds a default namespace to the request to ensure that the server authen ticates the user in the correct namespace passes requests to an IBM Cognos 8 dispatcher for processing 23. How to disable anonymous access in Cognos 8? Ans. By default, an anonymous access to the Cognos Connection portal is allowed and there is no user authentication. The anonymous access can be disabled on the machine where content manage r is installed (including the failover content manager). Go to Cognos configuration -> Security -> Authentication -> Cognos, clic k on 'Allow anonymous access?' and select 'No'. To ensure that only select users have unrestricted access to Public Fold ers in Cognos Connection, the Everyone group must be removed from the System Adm inistrators role. IBM Cognos 8 components support the following authentication sources: Active Directory Server IBM Cognos Series 7 Custom Authentication Provider LDAP eTrust SiteMinder NTLM SAP 24. Why content manager services must be started first in the distributed instal lation? Ans. An administrator must configure and start services for the content manager first to ensure that the certificate authority service is available to issue cer tificates to other computers in the distributed installation. The gateway must be configured to know the location of the content manag er. 25. How does load balancing work in Cognos 8? Ans. Load balancing spreads processing among all available processors which mean s that processing requests are distributed appropriately among all the available Cognos servers. By default, Cognos balances request load automatically, so each server dispatcher processes the same number of requests. The automatic load bal ancing is weighted round robin. Load balancing can be also customized by setting process capacity settin gs using server administration options. The CPU speed is a good indicator to set the balancing weight. For instance, when there are 2 servers with following configuration: a dual P4 3,8GHz with 2048MB RAM server a single CPU 1Ghz with 1024MB RAM machine Then it would be reasonable to assing a weight of 4 to the first server and a weight of 1 to the second one. Then Cognos will submit most of the request (80%) to the more powerful s erver. In order to disable the Cognos 8 internal load balancing mechanism, the mode needs to be set to Cluster compatible. 28. IBM Cognos 8 environment tuning and optimization tips? Ans. The process of tuning and optimizing IBM Cognos 8 environment may looking a t the following settings:

Set usage peak periods - for instance set the number of connections and processes to low during peak hours (business operation hours) Adjust the maximum number of processes and connections for the report se rvice, the batch report service and the data movement service Adjust queue time limits for interactive requests Adjust PDF output settings - file character encoding, font embedding and compression policy Maximum execution time for the report service, batch report service and data movement service Adjust retention time for watch list report output (for Analysis Studio and Report Studio) Change compression for email attachments Adjust the report size limit for the report data service Server group names for advanced dispatcher routing Load balancing - balancing requests among dispatchers by adjusting weigh ts Within a load balancing infrastructure, use a cluster compatible mode fo r dispatchers (load balancing) 30. Audit logging and audit reports in Cognos 8 Ans. Audit logging (audit reports) are used to view the information in a logging database about user and report activity. Sample audit report definitions might be: User calls made from Cognos 8 components Agent execution history by user Daily average and poor exceptions Daily metric exceptions Execution history reports by package, report, user Failed service requests detect agent Logon operations by time stamp, username, User sessions - abnormal termination, logon errors, etc. A few sample audit reports are available in the Cognos samples installat ion package 31. What logging levels are available in IBM Cognos 8? Ans. The logging levels are set to specify the events and messages to record in the log file or in the log database. A different logging level can be set for ea ch dispatcher service. In Cognos 8 there are 5 different logging levels: Minimal, Basic, Reques t, Trace, Full. Attached below is a list of logging events by a level: System and service startup and shutdown, runtime errors - logged on all 5 levels User account management, runtime usage of IBM Cognos 8, use requests - B asic, Request, Trace, Full (all except Minimal) Service requests and responses - Request, Full All requests to all components with parameter values, native queries - T race, Full 34. What are Cognos 8 system metrics types? Ans. There is a wide variety of metrics available in IBM Cognos 8 installation t o help monitor the system performance. The cognos system metrics include the following groups: Session metrics - containing such metrics as number of sessions Queue metrics - Latency, Number of queue requests, Queue length, Time in queue JVM metrics - monitor Java heap size (memory currently used) and up time Request metrics - monitor volume of requests, operational status of serv ices, response and processing times

Process Metrics for Report and Batch Report Service - Number of processe s Most of the metrics include the following set of values: - current value (a point in time) - high watermark value (a maximum value since the last reset) - low watermark value (a minimum value since the last reset) 41. Supported data sources in IBM Cognos 8 Ans. Data sources are created in Cognos Connection and are necessary to create m odels in Framework Manager and run reports or analyses from IBM Cognos 8. IBM Cognos 8 supports the following data sources: DB2 IBM Cognos PowerCubes - need specifying a local path IBM DB2 OLAP and Hyperion Essbase IBM Infosphere Warehouse Cubing Services Informix Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft Analysis Services - the Cognos service needs to have credentia ls to access MSAS server ODBC Oracle SAP BW InfoCubes Cognos TM1 XML 51. Concurrent report query execution Ans. By default, IBM Cognos 8 executes queries in a report sequentially. Dependi ng on the server environment it might be possible to improve report run performa nce by enabling parallel query execution. This setting can be adjusted in the advanced server properties for the r eport service and the batch report service. When concurrent query execution is e nabled, the report server determines which queries in the report can be run in p arallel. There are a few parameters that can be adjusted to manage concurrency in Cognos 8: RSVP.CONCURRENTQUERY.NUMHELPERSPERPROCESS - number of helpers per report service (and batch report service) process. By default the parameter value is 0 (concurrency disabled). RSVP.CONCURRENTQUERY.MAXNUMHELPERSPERREPORT - maximum number of helpers per report. By default it is set to 1. Has no effect when the above parameter is set to 0. RSVP.CONCURRENTQUERY.ENABLEDFORINTERACTIVEOUTPUT - enables concurrent qu ery execution when the report service is producing interactive output (disabled by default). 52. Integration with an existing web portal Ans. The open IBM Cognos 8 architecture means that it is possible to integrate I BM Cognos 8 into the organization''s existing Web portal. IBM Cognos 8 provides Portal Services to integrate cognos with a number of portals, including: SAP Enterprise IBM WebSphere Plumtree 53. Definition and role of a Ans. A Dispatcher starts all omputer and routes requests. uses one or more threads per cognos 8 dispatcher IBM Cognos 8 services configured and enabled on a c The dispatcher is a multithreaded application that request.

Dispatcher can route requests to such services as: report service, prese ntation service, job service, monitor service. A dispatcher can also route requests to a specific dispatcher to run a g iven request. Requests can be routed to specific dispatchers based on load-balan cing needs or package requirements. During the process of IBM Cognos 8 gateways configuration, a list of uni versal resource identifiers (URIs) of target dispatchers is available (oredered from the most to least preferred). When a dispatcher starts, it registers itself with Content Manager, so e ach dispatcher is aware of other dispatchers. If a dispatcher fails, requests ar e routed to another dispatcher based on the list. 54. Predefined roles in Cognos 8 Ans. In general, roles represent a collection of users that are responsible for similiar areas, have the same status or perform the same tasks in an organizatio n. Cognos 8 allows administrators to implement custom business specific rol es, however a default set of ten predefined roles will normally be enough. The IBM Cognos 8 BI predefined roles are: Consumers - run and read reports Query users - run and read reports and use Query Studio Authors - run and read reports and use Query Studio and Report Studio Report Administrators - administer reports, use Query Studio and Report Studio Server Administrators - administer servers, jobs and dispatchers Directory Administrators - administer accounts, groups, contacts, distri bution lists, data sources and printers Metrics Administrators - administer metrics packages and tasks in cognos connection Metrics authors - Create and edit scorecard applications in Metrics Stud io Metrics users - monitor enterprise performance in Metrics Studio Portal administrators - Administer cognos portlets and third-party portl ets in Cognos Connection 55. How to schedule reports in Cognos 8? Ans. Schedules are coordinated in Cognos 8 using the Schedule Management tool. T he schedule management tool can be accessed directly from Cognos Connection and it allows to add, modify or delete a schedule, view report run history and chang e the properties of a job. Reports can be scheduled in Cognos 8 to run: individually or by using a job on a yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, hour ly and by minute basis at a given time in the future or at a recurring date and time Each report or job can be associated with only one schedule. If multiple schedules are required for the same report, multiple report views need to be cr eated and scheduled for each report. To Schedule multiple reports, it is necessary to create a job. A Cognos job composed of steps, each of which is a reference to an individual report, a r eport view or another job. The steps in a job can be executed in a sequence or in parallel.

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