Difference between Cognos Powerplay Client, Powerplay server and Cognos Transformer - cognos

Can someone please explain the difference between Cognos Powerplay client, Powerplay server and Cognos transformer.
I am trying to install Cognos 10.2 on a server. I have the installation software for the below three, but not sure if these need to be installed and if so in which order.
1.Cognos Powerplay Client
2.Cognos Powerplay server and
3.Cognos Transformer.
I do not have much experience with Cubes. Do I need to install all the above 3 to build OLAP cubes? or Just Cognos transformer is sufficient?
Appreciate your response.
Thanks.

Transformer is used to design and build cubes.
Powerplay Client is a desktop tool for reading the cube.
Powerplay Server is exactly what it sounds like.
How you intend for your users to interact with the cubes determines what you need. You must have Transformer to build cubes. The others are optional. Users can interact with cubes using the standard studios that come with Cognos BI (Report Studio, etc). I don't really see any need for the other two.

Related

Excel recording in Loadrunner

I am trying to do a Performace test on Excel based application with loadrunner. Started of running the protocol advisor. which is trowing error.
My main target is to record the excel based application. For simulation created a database and calling database from excel.
Any sugestions what protocol to use. Or any other tools for conducting performance test on excel based application.
Here is where the foundation classes of knowledge on development and architecture come into play for a performance test professional.
Tell us about the next upstream component from excel? Is it connecting directly to the database or is it going through a web services or other application server layer? Do you have SQL Queries you are trying to reproduce or some other mechanism so as accessing your source?
What have you tried? (Other than protocol confuser?)

Dealing with error message in Cognos

I have installed Cognos 10 Framework Manager in my client computer and when I tried creating a new project, this pop up message showed up.
I heard that you need to have a webservice in this context. The question is> How should I solve this problem_
Framework Manager should typically be configured to connect to a running Cognos BI instance. If you don't have one of those, you will get errors trying to perform a variety of activities within an FM project (such as applying row-level security). Even getting started will be difficult, since Framework Manager will reach out to the BI Server to retrieve things like data source information.
If you have a running BI Server somewhere, you need to configure the FM instance (Cognos Configuration on your client system) to point at the Gateway and Dispatcher URLs for the Cognos BI Server. Here's the relevant docs on IBM's site:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/cbi/v10r1m1/topic/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.inst_cr_winux.10.1.1.doc/t_steps_configure_fm_environment_properties.html#steps_configure_FM_environment_properties

Analyse the Server response while testing an Application manually

I have an Web application which I have to measure the Performance from the Server response of that application while testing it manually in several machine.
How can I do it. Do we have any tool to measure the Server Response time of a Web Application while performing the manual testing on several machine.
Thanks,
Udhay S
Udhay,
JMETER provides you all necessary performance graphs from which you can get the server response. Its easy to use and you can increase the load to test the server response.
In JMETER you have a list of reports - Aggregate graph, Spline Visualizer graph and a summary report explaining the server response.
A stopwatch? Seriously, if you are running manual tests then the best, most accurate and the most purely subjective way to record how long it appears to take for a page to load is to use a stopwatch wired to the human brain. Until someone can invent a computer that can pass a Turing test this is as good as it gets.
If you feel like you need to automate things then automate the test first, and then think about automating recording response time.

How to expose cognos reports as web service

please let me know what are the API’s available in Cognos?
what are the API's required to expose cognos reports as web services for mobile apps?
Thanks in advance.
There are a handfull of APIs for orchestrating activities or retrieving data in Cognos
Cognos exposes a "URL" interface for some of the most common activities. This includes running a report, viewing saved report output, opening a report in report studio, etc.
You can use the Cognos SDK. This is the most powerful way to orchestrate things in Cognos. It has a large surface area and a fairly steep learning curve, but if you're willing to invest the time in it, the possibilities are endless
You can use the Cognos Mashup service - this is kind of like "SDK Lite". Its much easier to use but exposes a much smaller surface area. As the name implies, its useful for mashup type scenarios.
Here's an article which describes Cognos Mashup vs. Cognos SDK, and provides some heuristics for when you would choose one over the other :
http://www.motio.com/blog/2010/11/01/cognos-sdk-vs-cognos-mashup.do
You are looking for Cognos Mobile.
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/analytics/cognos/mobile/features-and-benefits.html

Windows Media Server Streaming from database

Is it possible to somehow set up WMS to stream the content from a database only using Windows Server 2003 Standard edition?
I know it can be done using custom-plugin data source but that is only enabled with Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your best bet is probably:
Maintain copies of your data outside of the database (I don't know the details of your setup, so this may defeat the purpose of what you're trying to do). Basically, keep a file cache of the content you want to stream and write an application to keep the file cache synchronized with the database.
Switch to Windows Server 2008. The Web Server and Standard editions for 2008 support custom plugins and should be much more affordable than the Enterprise editions (I believe the Web Server edition is under $500).
Maybe someone else has some clever solution, but these are the only options I'm aware of.
There is nothing that ships out of the box but WMS does support additional custom plug-ins. From a performance perspective you might want to consider why you need to do so. The easiest way in my mind would be to write an HTTP wrapper around the database and use the built-in HTTP streaming data source. The knowledge and skills required to write the HTTP wrapper is more plentiful than writing WMS plugins. If you do have a use case for this consider SQL Server 2008's filestream feature as it is designed for giving you the relational power with file system performance.

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