Cognos?! Who Needs Cognos When You've Got a Watson!

IBM held a webinar today (January 29th, 2015) titled "IBM Watson Analytics for IBM Cognos Users. Here is my run down of what Big Blue had to show:

• Watson is an unstoppable beast... in slide decks: Every time I see a Watson presentation the visualizations look great and the marketing speak makes it sound like a game changer. However I have yet to see an actual demonstration of the damn thing.
• Cognos sure sounds boring: IBM gets positively tired whenever the conversation shifts to Cognos. You can tell how unexcited they are to sell things like "trusted source of data." Who needs trust when you've got a sweet graph!
• The Watson - Cognos integration does not exist: As per the slide deck, the current integration point between the two is that you take what you learned in Watson and send an email to someone in IT asking them to change something in Cognos to match your new insight. Awesome.

I had high(er) hopes for this presentation. Given the title I was expecting to see IBM's vision for how Watson and Cognos exist in an analytics ecosystem, or at least an outline of some integration points between the two. IBM had nothing to say about Cognos though other than to acknowledge its existence, which... whatever. Just another wasted opportunity from Big Blue so par for the course. 

More than anything I'd like them to actually demonstrate Watson in the hands of a highly skilled presenter. Because, as you'll see in a future post, my experience with the Watson "freemium edition" is less than stellar...

32-bit vs 64-bit Ain't Just for Playstation and Nintendo

Redditor Aybabtu123 on the IBM Cognos subreddit asks:

"I'm putting together a 10.2.2 sandbox environment and I'd like to enable dynamic query mode on it. Is it true that all datasources must be 64 bit for this?"

This is a great question and one that IBM frequently discusses in a way that is clear as mud, so here is the answer as succinctly as I can phrase it. Assuming a 64-bit installation of Cognos on a 64-bit server with a 64-bit OS...

• With the Report Server Execution mode in Cognos Configuration set to 32-bit, queries routed to this server will execute in either CQE or DQM depending on how the datasource and package have been defined.
• With the Report Server Execution mode in Cognos Configuration set to 64-bit, queries routed to this server will only execute in DQM. CQE queries will error out.

Where the magic happens.

Cognos is automatically set to 32-bit Report Server Execution upon installation, so as long as you don't change it your application servers will be able to execute both 32-bit (CQE) and 64-bit (DQM) queries - and by extension utilize both CQE and DQM datasources.

Tomorrow (or soon anyway) we'll discuss what situations would warrant switching to a 64-bit only application server and the steps you need to take to properly route traffic. I'll give you a big hint though, and it rhymes with crynamic dubes.

The Content Conundrum, or What To Expect From This Blog

Believe me when I say that I didn't decide to make this blog on a lark. I've been thinking about it for a long time and came close to starting it up a time or two but I couldn't ever answer 'The Dramatic Question' in order to put pen to pixel and start writing.

You're probably thinking, "What the hell does that mean, I came her to learn how to configure a drill through!" Well, let me back up a second...

I came to Cognos from an unconventional background; I received a BA in playwriting and spent a solid chunk of my twenties earning a meager salary as a writer, director, literary critic and script reviewer in Chicago. It wasn't until I wised up to the fact that I was never going to make any money that I pivoted to my other passion - nerd stuffs - and got into IT. 

The Dramatic Question can be phrased a lot of ways but I have always liked "What makes this day different from all the days that came before it?" If you have a great answer to that question you have a great story and I've read hundreds that couldn't answer it at all. I always swore I'd never write one of those stories.  

Or one of those blogs. I can add a little seasoning to the stew when it comes to how-to's but there are already great resources written by people who know way more than I do.  Instead I can bridge the gap from "how do I solve this drill through error?" to "how should I be thinking about drill through as part of a holistic Cognos BI environment?"  That is my focus and what I hope makes this blog different from its forebears.

So what should you expect?  Of course I will highlight the solution to specific technical challenges but in the context of making a coherent and harmonious Cognos BI environment for end users.  I will focus on "how to think" and not just "how to."  And I will reach out to those people who know way more than I do and invite them to contribute.

Because just like The Manifesto says: We need to talk, so let's start now.

We Need To Talk: The Blue View Manifesto

We need to talk.

I am continuously surprised at the lack of strong IBM Cognos community content available on the web. With a few notable exceptions Cognos blogs burn bright, die fast and leave a handful of good posts slowly aging into obsolescence.

If you have made a career in Cognos this is a critical time. Cognos can do data discovery, visualization, self-service and collaboration but even IBM seems to lack a holistic vision to stitch it together.  Or else True Blue and the business partners are content to keep it behind the consulting pay wall.

That's a huge problem. That's the old world that Tableau and Birst have been sent here to destroy. Yes the new breed of BI tools are powerful and cool and excel in their particular niche, but more than anything they foster a user community that feels connected to one another. Last time I checked Tableau's forum had over 18,000 posts. Where is IBM's forum?

That's a trick question because it doesn't matter. A software community can only be formed and sustained by a group of people who have knowledge and the passion to share it. The deeply technical how-to's and the holistic design philosophies have already been crafted by the army of talented Cognos developers.

We just need to talk about it.

So let's start now.