IBM Cognos 10 New Features Demo

Here is the link to the IBM Cognos 10 New Features, the demo elaborates on the new features that has been introduced in IBM Cognos 10:

http://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/data/sw-library/cognos/demos/od_whats_new_with_ibm_cognos_business_intelligence_v101/demo.html

Where to find IBM Cognos Technotes? Where to go first when you hit an error in IBM Cognos?

The new IBM support portal is the place to go when you an error or you need to search for a IBM Cognos Technote. You will need to select the product for which you want to search, put the search string and start your search.

Link to new IBM support portal -
http://www.ibm.com/support/entry/portal

Technote Search Best Practices -
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21373237

Supported Environments for IBM Cognos

The supported environment pages list the softwares that are supported with different IBM Cognos products. These are the links that you should look for when you are planning a new install or need to check the different softwares that can work in tandem with IBM Cognos products.

Link to Supported Environment page for Cognos products -

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=3528&uid=swg27014782

These links only list the current supported versions for IBM Cognos products. For example, you will find only the latest versions under IBM Cognos 8 BI : 8.3, 8.4 and 8.4.1.

The main log file for Cognos 8 BI

The main log file in IBM Cognos 8 BI is cogserver.log file. This file can be located in the "../logs" directory. Depending on the tracing / logging levels information is logged in this file. In case you are getting any issue while running Cognos application, this is one of the starting points for you to start troubleshooting the issue.

For IBM Cognos Reportnet the file main log file is known as crnserver.log, this file is also located in the "../logs" directory for your reportnet installation.

Accessing Cognos without a web server

Running IBM Cognos without a web server:

One of tricks that you can use in IBM Cognos is to run the Cognos application without a Web Server. For this you can use the dispatcher URI mentioned in the Cognos Configuration. Once you access the dispatcher URI for the first time you will not see any graphics. To load the graphics / images you will need to carry out the following steps:

a. Copy the contents of the directory "/webcontents/"

b. Paste the contents to the directory "/webapps/p2pd/"

Once this is done, you will be able to use Cognos without using a webserver. This method is only used when your application is not configured with the webserver or the webserver is not functioning correctly.

Further Reading: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21339260

First Technical Blog !!

This is the first time I am trying to write some Technical stuff in the blog, this has been a long cherished dream though. Primarily, I am planning to write stuff about IBM Cognos.

Starting Time

Everything has to start and end at some time. Start and End are the constants, 'Everything' being the variant. :)