The System Architect and IBM Cognos integration is based on an architecture that allows various users performing different roles on different systems to generate business intelligence reports from data in a System Architect encyclopedia. The architecture includes one or more System Architect client machines from which users run Cognos Reports. On another machine, the IBM Cognos server is installed and then configured to retrieve encyclopedia data. Additionally, on the same IBM Cognos computer, or on a different computer, the System Architect Cognos Bridge is installed. Framework Manager is used to create the packages that will hold System Architect data.
The roles and responsibilities in the integration may overlap, and vary according to individual environments. But a number of tasks must be executed regardless of who execute them. Following is a general categorization of the roles and the tasks that need to be done to implement the integration successfully.
System Architect/Cognos administrator
▪Installs IBM Cognos.
▪Installs the System Architect - Cognos Bridge.
▪Runs the SA Schema Generator to generate a schema from the System Architect encyclopedia, creating an ODS database.
▪Uses the SA Data Retriever to get encyclopedia data manually (through command line options) or uses the Windows scheduler to retrieve data at scheduled intervals.
▪Uses the Framework Manager to create packages from the ODS database.
System Architect user
▪For each encyclopedia whose data is being pulled by the SA Data Retriever, uses SAEM for SQL Server to point to the Report server by providing the Cognos server name and port number.
▪Opens the encyclopedia (whose data has been pulled into IBM Cognos) and executes the “Cognos Reports” option to run IBM Cognos reports from the IBM Cognos server specified via SAEM.