Cognos Deployment Across Environments - Part 1

Today I was guiding a colleague on Movement of Cognos reports/ packages across environments and thought I would share the same on my blog for the benefit of first time users of Cognos. Though the same is shared in Cognos documents but felt I would simplify it and just provide the basics on it. Let me know if this helps anyone:

To move reports and packages across any environment there are 3 simple steps that need to be followed : create an archive of the object by exporting it, copy and paste this archive from one environment to another and import the archive. Consider an archive as a zip file that is in Cognos format. So essentially we are zipping the contents and moving it across environment.

The most basic steps and properties that need to be adhered to for creating an archive / export is detailed below:

Step 1: Navigate to Content Administration in your Cognos Connection. In 8.4 this is available under Launch > IBM Cognos Administration > Configuration

Step 2: Click on New Export

Step 3: Provide a name for the export. Note this is not the archive name. Consider this like a workflow name to help you re-execute the workflow of archiving Cognos objects. Click Next.

Step 4: The next page asks you for a deployment method, options being - Select public folders and directory content, Select the entire Content Store. Choose the 1st option unless you want to move all the Cognos Connection objects across environments. Click Next.

Step 5: In the next page that opens select the objects (Report / Package / Folders ) you want to deploy. Remember when you export packages that contains reports under the package object even those reports would get deployed.

Step 6: Remember to check the Disable after import option for the objects you want to export unless you want them disabled in the new environment after deployment.

Step 7: In case you want to include report output versions, run history, schedules; then select the corresponding check boxes. Click Next.

Step 8: If you are deploying objects to a new environment that doesn't have Cognos groups and roles, Distribution lists, Contacts, Data Sources and Connections set up then select the corresponding check boxes. Click Next.

Step 9: If you want to carry forward any permissions that you have set for the objects you are exporting, select the checkbox against the "Include access permissions" property. You can apply permissions to any new objects that you are exporting to the new environment or you can also apply permissions to new objects and existing objects that you are exporting to over-write in your new environment.

Step 10: If you wish to include references to external namespaces, select this option.

Step 11: Next property that needs to be set is something that Cognos administrators would insist on. This is ownership property. When you export objects you can either set the owner on the new environment to the owner from the source or to the user performing the import. Usually this is set to the user performing the import. The reason behind this being only administrators usually perform the import and they need to be set as owners to prevent the original owners from modifying objects in the new environment. Click Next

Step 12: Provide the archive name in the next page.

Step 13: You an encrypt the archive and provide a password for the encrypted archive as well. Click Next.

Step 14: Review the options selected in the next page and click Next.

Step 15: In the Next page, you an choose to save and run this export once or save and schedule this export or just save this export to be run at a later time. Click Finish.

Step 15: If you choose to Save and Run once, in the next page that opens you can choose to either run it immediately or defer the run to a future date. Click OK to create the archive.

Step 16: Once the export is completed you can view the details of the same by clicking on More Actions against your export name in the Content Administration list. Click on View history to view the details of the export run.

Step 17: The archive is always created on the server machine. To copy and paste the archive to a new environment, locate the archive in the deployment folder path on your server machine. By default the deployment folder is located in /deployment

ex: C:\Program Files\cognos\c8\deployment

Step 18: Copy the required archive and paste it into the deployment folder of your new environment.

This completes the export and movement of the Cognos objects. The steps for import are fairly simple and would be covered in the next post.