Hosting Cognos 10.2.2 on Microsoft Azure cloud

[White light]

Hello All,

Currently we have an on-premise Cognos 10.2.2 environment running.
Wanted to know whether Cognos 10.2.2 application can be hosted on Azure cloud? Is it supported on Microsoft Azure cloud?


Thanks,
WL

[MFGF]

Hello All,

Currently we have an on-premise Cognos 10.2.2 environment running.
Wanted to know whether Cognos 10.2.2 application can be hosted on Azure cloud? Is it supported on Microsoft Azure cloud?


Thanks,
WL

Hi,

You'd need to provision a suitably sized VM in Azure and install all the requisite software on it, but yes, it can be done. Your challenges, I suspect, will be connecting securely to any data sources that remain on-prem, plus connecting to your security provider if it is on-prem too. I'm guessing you'd need to set up a secure VPN between the VM in Azure and your corporate network to allow the appropriate secure communications.

Other cloud options for you, if you were willing to entertain the idea of upgrading to a newer release of Cognos, would be:

1. Use the public cloud offering from IBM. You just sign up with a credit card, and the licenses are very inexpensive. Downsides are no support for FM models or Transformer cubes, DQM only, a limited set of data source connections, no support for your on-prem security provider, and it's in the IBM cloud rather than MS Azure.
2. Use the IBM hosted SAAS offering for Cognos Analytics. You get your own dedicated instance of CA in the cloud, you can use FM models and Transformer cubes, you can use your own on-prem security provider, and you have the full DQM list of supported data sources. Downsides are it's DQM only, it's more expensive than the public cloud offering, and it's in the IBM cloud rather than MS Azure.
3. Use IBM Cloud Pak for Data with the CA addin cartridge. You can run Cloud Pak for Data on a range of cloud offerings and/or on-prem (so hybrid cloud), and this includes hosting it in MS Azure. Downsides are it's DQM only, you have a limited choice of security providers, and it's a more expensive option, although you get the benefit of lots of other capabilities beyond just Cognos Analytics.

Cheers!

MF.

[White light]

Hello MF,

Thanks for the quick response.
Unfortunately, they are opting to go with Azure cloud for Cognos and other applications.
Moreover, we are currently using CQM. So other options are not feasible.
Nevertheless, thanks for enumerating the options with IBM Cloud. Always great to learn.

Any ideas on how licensing is handled for cloud?
Should we have to subscribe to Cognos 10.2.2 application for Cloud particularly? or would the files that we have now work?

thanks,
WL

[MFGF]

Hello MF,

Thanks for the quick response.
Unfortunately, they are opting to go with Azure cloud for Cognos and other applications.
Moreover, we are currently using CQM. So other options are not feasible.
Nevertheless, thanks for enumerating the options with IBM Cloud. Always great to learn.

Any ideas on how licensing is handled for cloud?
Should we have to subscribe to Cognos 10.2.2 application for Cloud particularly? or would the files that we have now work?

thanks,
WL

Hi,

If you're provisioning a VM in Azure and installing Cognos into that, your existing licenses should still be valid, so no change on the licensing front.

Cheers!

MF.

[White light]

Hello MF,

Thanks for the response.
Appreciate all the inputs and guidance. :)
I'll update on how things go with this.

Thanks,
WL