Here is a little background on myself:
I came from a Business Objects Analyst position at a previous company with no Cognos Administration experience. When I came on at my new company, I was thrust into the position (Not complaining) of Cognos Administrator, Cognos Developer, Cognos Report Builder, Cognos Report Analyst, and I am trying to clean up a lot of mess from a previous consultant who tried to configure our systems. All Cognos lingo is pretty new to me, but I have been learning.
A question I received from my boss today: "Can you list the different ways we can connect Cognos to our sources? I believe the answer lies within the content store. What architectures can we connect to that will provide us with a similar model to what we are doing currently with [Current System]?"
Our [Current System] has a connection to Cognos through SQL Server 2008. We have about 3 other systems that we would like to connect to, to streamline our reporting. All 3 Companies who own these other 3 systems have tried to sell us their BI tools for use. But since we have invested in Cognos (Currently 10.1) as a company, we would like to utilize it to it's fullest potential. Web Services is an option that they have given us as a connection to their data. But from what I understand, Web Services is not "Live" data. Having data that is as up-to-date as possible is extremely important for our company.
If anyone could help me answer my boss's questions as well as help direct me to some of the best tools/ ways to connect to these other three systems, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thank you
Caleb
What is the underlying database technology of these other three systems?
When you find that out, you can see if those databases are on the IBM Cognos 10.1 supported environments:
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27019126