You can gain a lot of synergy by incorporating InfoSphere components with Cognos 8 BI for Linux on System z.
For example, you can define your business terms in InfoSphere Information Server Business
Glossary on Linux on System z, so that you can provide common terminology for both
business users and Cognos report developers. Once the terminology is defined, it is
extremely easy for any Cognos user to discover the definition of the term. The big benefit for
organizations is that it leads to trusted information by providing a means for everyone to use
common terminology when accessing or displaying the same piece of information. This
reduces complexity and misunderstanding.
If you use the InfoSphere Business Glossary from within Cognos 8 BI, you can access the
glossary from any of the following data objects in Report Studio:
_ Query subject
_ Query item
_ Measure
_ Dimension
_ Hierarchy
_ Level
_ Property/attribute
_ Top node member
_ Member
_ Level item
There is also synergy between the InfoSphere Warehouse on System z and Cognos 8 BI for
Linux on System z because you can have your Cognos reporting functions in close proximity
to the data that is being reported. This is really apparent when a report needs a large amount
of data because of the ability to use HiperSockets on the System z machine. HiperSockets
allows a 6 MBps connection between Cognos 8 BI for Linux on System z and the InfoSphere
Warehouse on System z.
In addition, by combining Cognos with WebSphere Portal, you can easily provide trusted
information through easy to create Web pages.
Other synergies between Cognos and InfoSphere include:
_ The IBM Smart Analytics System is a preconfigured and optimized system that provides
Business Intelligence Capabilities with Cognos 8 BI, Advanced Analytics with InfoSphere
Data Mining, and a scalable Data Warehouse platform with InfoSphere Warehouse.
_ InfoSphere Information Server can generate data lineage data based on DataStage jobs
that allow the analysis of data lineage using Metadata Workbench from source to target.
Cognos 8 BI has data lineage capabilities from report to data warehouse table/views. With
the integration, Cognos data lineage data can be imported into Information Server, which
allows data lineage from source to report.
_ InfoSphere Warehouse Cubing Services provides large scale OLAP capabilities inside the
data warehouse. Cognos can provide powerful analysis capabilities.
