IBM Cognos v12 Admin flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Dispatcher

The application-tier entry point that registers services, maintains the service registry, and routes incoming requests to the appropriate service process.

Content store

The relational database holding Cognos metadata: report specifications, folders, security objects, schedules, and the service registry. It does not store report result data.

Content Manager

The service that owns all reads and writes to the content store. It is the only supported writer, and direct SQL changes to its tables are unsupported.

Gateway

The web server or reverse proxy that receives client requests and forwards them to the application tier. It is the only component end users must reach directly.

Server group

A logical grouping of application-tier nodes that share work. All members must connect to the same content store schema to coordinate routing.

Authentication namespace

A configured identity source such as LDAP, Active Directory, or OpenID Connect. User identities are namespace-qualified, so identical short names in different namespaces are different users.

Capability

An entry in the secured function tree controlling access to a feature, such as report authoring or administration. Grants are allow or deny, with deny overriding allow at the same level.

Traverse permission

The permission required on a parent folder to reach a secured child object. Without it, a user cannot navigate to content they might otherwise be allowed to open.

Data-level security

Row-level restriction implemented in the model or query through filters and session parameters, rather than through report object permissions, which only control who can run a report.

Silent installation

An unattended install driven by a response file. It enables repeatable, scripted builds of multiple application-tier nodes with identical component selections.

Deployment archive

An export package containing content such as folders, reports, schedules, and data source references. It moves content between environments but is not a content store migration.

Supported upgrade matrix

The documented set of source releases that can upgrade directly to a target release. Jumps outside it require an intermediate upgrade or export/import.

Bootstrap configuration file

A per-node startup file defining how a process launches, including ports and content store connection details. It must be consistent across nodes in a server group.

Service registry

The record of registered services and their endpoints, maintained through the content store. Stale entries after an unclean shutdown cause phantom-service symptoms.

Report service

The application-tier service that executes interactive report requests and renders output. It runs in its own JVM process with its own heap configuration.

Batch report service

The service that executes scheduled and background report requests. Concentrated schedules saturating this service is a common performance fault.

Dynamic query mode

A Java-based query engine requiring supported JDBC drivers on the application tier. It provides enhanced metadata caching and functions compared with legacy query mode.

Signon object

A content store object holding credentials for a data source, separate from the connection definition. Multiple signons per data source allow different credential sets.

Connection pool sizing

Per-data-source minimum and maximum connection counts. The sum across all data sources must remain below the database's own connection limit to avoid failures.

Package

The published, secured interface to a Framework Manager model. Reports bind to a package, and republishing is required after model changes.

Report output caching

Storage of rendered report results keyed by report, parameters, user identity, and data. Changing any key component causes a cache miss and re-execution.

Metadata cache refresh

The process of reloading model and schema metadata into the query engine. Required after model or database schema changes to avoid stale metadata errors.

Audit database

An optional database receiving logged user activity, report executions, and errors. It must be provisioned and auditing enabled before audit reports yield data.

Log level scoping

Setting DEBUG only on the failing component rather than globally. Global DEBUG logging degrades performance and inflates log volume across all nodes.

Job

A container that sequences multiple steps, such as reports or other jobs, under one schedule and settings. Steps can be set to stop or continue on failure.

Schedule time zone

The explicit time zone attached to a schedule, which can differ from the server default. Misalignment causes jobs to fire at unexpected local times.

Output version retention

The setting controlling how many saved report outputs are kept per report. Unlimited retention is a frequent cause of uncontrolled content store growth.

Burst report

A single scheduled report split into per-recipient or per-group outputs using a burst key. The key values must exist in the underlying data.

Theme and extension deployment

Branding and UI customization deployed as web content artifacts. These are version-specific and must be revalidated after every upgrade.

User preference defaults

System-level settings for locale, time zone, number format, and output format, which individual users can override. Locale affects rendering and date formatting.

Horizontal scaling

Adding application-tier nodes behind the gateway to increase capacity. Content Manager write contention is the typical limiting factor as nodes are added.

Trusted authentication

A single sign-on method where the gateway injects a trusted identity header after authenticating the user. It must be consistent end-to-end through the gateway.