You can take advantage of the log messaging facility within Cognos 8 to help investigate or diagnose the behaviour of the Cognos 8 BI system. You can configure the log servers in both a single or multi server environment.
The log messages are generated by the various components, filtered by level, and directed to one or more destinations by the log server. A log server is automatically installed when you install the Content Manager or report server. There are 3 main types of messages that can be created:
1. Audit logging -- calls that are made from components
2. Trace logging -- shows which tasks are being performed
3. Performance logging -- amount of system resources required for a task
If you do use the Audit logging then you should ensure that you set up the Audit database and use the canned reports that comes with the Audit package. You should also become familiar with the cogserver.log located in your install's /log folder.
Cognos has a utility that is included with your install that doesn't appear to receive support. It is the logconsole.exe, which is also located in the /logs folder. This is a utility that can be used to view the log messages and to turn on/off levels of logging. You can use this utility to help capture the SQL that is being generated when a report is run.
To log or not to log, it's not really a question!
