Cognos 8 - deployment archives for 3 different databases and maintaining reports

[Dave the coder]

I'm new to Cognoise and Cognos and have a problem with deployment archives:

At my company we use 3 different databases Informix, Oracle, and SQL server 2000 and most of my job is to maintain reports that will run on all three of these databases.

What I have done is make a separate deployment archive for each database and import it into the Cognos Connection Content Store to be able to quickly switch between different types of databases and have the correct reports run: note its the same reports on 3 different databases.  Basically my question is this: when only changing the SQL on a report I've been editing the cognos report XML directly from the deployment archive then saving the report. Afterwards I  export the entire content store so my coworkers can have up to date contentstore on their cognos connections.


Basically, how can I have these reports be usuable for each type of database as well as making the XML report files easily editable so my coworkers can modify them if needed.  Can you write reports in Cognos that run on any database datasource so I can cut down on the maintenance needed?

And is there an easier way to edit the XML of a cognos report and reload it besides ripping it from the packages or pasting the XML from reportnet?

Thanks,

Dave

[rockytopmark]

Reports can be written to work off of most of the common RDBMS as long as the Metadata modeling is done using Cognos SQL (which is an offshoot of SQL 99),  and you stay away from using DB specific functions, etc..

With that, your deployment should cross all DB platforms as well.  What will change is the datasource conection definition in the Cognos 8 Directory.

In the end if the modeling is done correctly and with multiple DB platforms in mind, one report definition is all you should need.

[Dave the coder]

Alright, thanks!

I inherited this work, so I'm not the one who threw the Reports together but most of them seem to use SQL that involves Native SQL.  My new plan of action is to see which ones are written using the native SQL and try to find a way to do these things using the Cognos SQL.  The databases all have the same table structures etc; for the same application, so if I can get them all down to one or maybe even 2 deployment archives that would make maintenance a bit more bearable :D

Thanks!

- Dave

[COGNOiSe administrator]

With Cognos 8, if no native SQL has been used, you can switch the database that the reports are running with in Cognos Connection. For example, you can have a database DB1 with connections C1, C2 and C3, and signons S1, S2 and S3. You can assign those connections and signons to different users, depending on security for example (i'm just thinking out loud here).