Content Manager Role in Cognos

[diasbrad]

Hi Friends,

Can anyone let me know what is the role of Content Manager in Cognos Architecture.

I am trying to understand the architecture of Cognos.

Thanks for your help in advance

Thanks & Regards
Bradley

[bvk.cognoise]

Hi diasbrad,
The Cognos 8 BI can be considered to be separated into a 3 tier architecture layout.

1st tier – Web Server
2nd tier – Applications
3rd tier – Data

The tiers are based on component function, and are normally separated by firewalls.  The C8 user interface rests above the tiers.  Primarily, the communication between the tier components is based on the both the SOAP and HTTP protocols.  Third party applications can use either a URL API or the SOAP API.  The SOAP API uses the BI Bus to move information from one service to another by moving the packets of data.

The 1st tier (Web Server) hosts the Cognos gateway, which: encrypts and decrypts passwords; extracts information needed to submit the request to a Cognos BI server; attaches environment variables for the Web server; adds a default namespace to the request to help ensure that the server authenticates the user in the correct namespace; and passes requests to a Cognos 8 BI dispatcher for processing.

The 2nd tier (Applications) hosts the Cognos 8 BI server and its associated services.  It is comprised of: Application Tier Components, Content Manager, and Bootstrap service.

The 3rd tier (Data) contains the Content Store, Data Sources, Metric Store

Regarding Content manger it is a Cognos BI service which manages the Cognos Content DB, all requests to access information from the Content DB is done through the Content Manager.

For example when publishing a Framework Manager/Model the Content Manager processes this request and writes the package and model to the Content DB. In addition when you create a new user security group, the Content Manager would store the full details and contents of this group within the Content DB, and when required would read from the Content DB to access this information.


Regards
bvk

[diasbrad]

Thanks bvk this is good information. Your help is highly appreciated.