Cognos on the Internet ..

[NaviGator]

Hello guys,

Can we expose the Cognos connection to the internet ? So that the user can access it online and view or build the reports?

Are there any open sample websites for such a scenario? What are the consideration or limitation for this?


Thanks ..

[MFGF]

Hi,

Technically, yes - absolutely. From a license standpoint... it depends. If you are on the named-user license model, I would suspect it would be impossible for you to demonstrate to IBM that you are complying with your license terms if (when) they ask for a license review. If you are on the PVU license model, then perhaps - does the PVU license cover recipients, consumers or enhanced consumers? I don't think there is a PVU model for authors of any sort (although I could be wrong). Talk to your IBM account manager - that's my advice :)

MF.

[MMcBride]

My environment is "exposed to the internet"

However it requires a Valid Active Directory domain account to access the tool.

So anyone in the world can connect to the log in screen... but from there you need a valid account to use the tools.
I cannot picture a scenerio where you would ever want to allow anonymous users access to any type of Business Reporting environment - to much chaos :)

Getting my environment setup accordingly required effort from several different teams.
I created a special Gateway server and this is the server that is exposed - via SSL to the world, that Gateway then connected to my primary CM via SSL. This also prevents any potential attacks from hitting my primary Cognos Servers. I have a seperate Gateway set up for internal use only - so if my External gateway were under attack it doesn't affect any of my internal users.

I had to have my Security team and my LAN team set up the proper environment so that my exposed gateway was available in the DMZ and only the specific ports necessary are open.

[NaviGator]

Hi guys,

Sorry for being late. I was in a short vacation.

The license will not be a problem. It is already following the PVU model. So it is not the issue. The issue will in the requirements. In this implementation there will be 2 types of users,

Internal users, these are the users of the system within the organization, they will have access to all content - based on different security roles - internally so these users should be authenticated first.

External users, these are the internet users. These users will have limited access to the content - in fact they will see a small part of the content - and they will access the content from the internet. They should not be authenticated. They should access the content through a website - for example -

The internal users can access the content from Cognos connection but I think this will not be suitable for external users and the Cognos connection does not have the look and feel of a normal website and will not be the best option for a normal internet users who know nothing about Cognos.

So, what do you think about this scenario? Do you have a link to any reference website where they are using Cognos for reporting and it is open for public?

Thanks ..

 

[MMcBride]

What type of content are in the reports?

For example will they need to Drill into other reports? Will they need to change Prompt values?

If neither of those are necessary you can simply have the reports deliver PDF content and deliver the results via a PDF.
If there is limited activity necessary some drill and filters you can look at delivering Active Reports - the end deliverable for Active Reports is MHT - most people use these Active Reports with the Ipad app - but that is just because IBM delivers the Ipad all - MHT is simply a Web Based Archive file and can be delivered relatively easily via a Web Portal of your own creation.

There are licensing issues when delivering content from Cognos but if you are already on PVU Consumer licensing for these then you should be ok but you should check with your IBM Sales rep just to make sure.

Another alternative is Portal Integration with Cognos - you can integrate Cognos into your own Web Portal so the reports are executed by Cognos but delivered by your Portal. I have never done this so cannot tell you how easy or difficult it may be

[MFGF]

There are licensing issues when delivering content from Cognos but if you are already on PVU Consumer licensing for these then you should be ok but you should check with your IBM Sales rep just to make sure.

Good advice! Consumer licenses (named user or PVU) do not permit Active Reports to be consumed - these would require Enhanced Consumer licenses. Look very carefully at the capabilities you want to deliver vs the license model you currenly have, and seek advice from IBM if you have any doubts. You really wouldn't want to be caught out by this in a future Software License Review by IBM.

Cheers!

MF.

[NaviGator]

Hi guys,

I have checked with IBM. I think they have changed the Cognos license architecture. Now there are

- Cognos Architect : which contains the administrative tools as well as the modeling tools.
- Cognos BI user : which replace the basic consumer, advanced consumer and the report author. it includes also the Active report ..

Thanks ..

[NaviGator]

Guys,

I am still searching for any website that is open for public access and contains sample Cognos reports. It will be very helpful if you have any .. Weather it is on Cognos Connection or anything else like Sharepoint for example ..

[CognosPaul]

You can find instances of Cognos on the internet by googling: inurl:ibmcognos
or inurl:cognos8

[NaviGator]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your response. The results of this search is Cognos environments that is using Cognos Connection portal. All of them are secured and not open for public access -

I have tried 4 or 5 links .. 

I can't find any public websites with Cognos reports ..

thanks ..

[MFGF]

https://wicn.nssc.nasa.gov/c10/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll?b_action=powerPlayService&m_encoding=UTF-8&BZ=1AAACc0SAlyp42qVQTXOCMBD9Mwm2l04IgnLgEJKodAao4Nd4ixgdWgUHsL_~G7TtTA_9uJtkX3bfSzax8vQlX6SZjETQdnWjI~GEKS0l83nIhPCJ5w89ZxyOQsEEHTnSG3kuY8B5toxWsozP3thiFmA6Keqq01UH6FCf9rrBboiHpFJnjR0xmJWNbjEl~LrT7QC7AngXVXyoo~5D5JEEHuu6puzKugI8gdYK1XZGZomcv~A0SSRfRBBYLIN~JFY4Dw6EIJsQYtsEIUSQSxAlyDhCHDrWjWkMUw~WNJr_4CTPOSb_~fRYvdeNYRTF9aLu12A6TjjH1AdeLFm_zGQOEEEeUwfK2sZ0Z_p9wv5NoAx4FPYE4nyzraJJ_Fk48_PyvCJq83rarVfXPQ9jtXar7SY6rqanbrvGzt4M4vPH5MljcmQMHvQN72b33qPbn~fz9tM3_wISHagT