30/09/13

Automating Cube Build in IBM Cognos Transformer 10 | The Ironside Group

Search this website

SEARCH

Company

Consulting

Training

Managed Services

Technology

Clients

Blog

Events

You are here: Home / Proven Practices / Modeling / Automating Cube Build in IBM Cognos Transformer 10

Contact Us

Automating Cube Build in IBM Cognos Transformer 10

June 5, 2012 by Susan Ma

Call 1-855-4IRONSIDE Or Send Us an Email

Email Newsletter
Our monthly newsletter is loaded with industry news, best practices, and innovative tips & tricks for IBM Cognos, and all of it from the desks of our veteran consultants. No recycled whitepapers or industry articles here. Enter Your Email Address... GO

IBM Cognos PowerPlay cubes are one of the most widely used OLAP data sources in the IBM Cognos environment. Typically, a PowerCube contains calculated and aggregated data that is organized as dimensions and measures, which can be viewed and analyzed in PowerPlay or Cognos BI (versions 8 or 10). Easy to use and fast access to pre-calculated summary data provides users with the ability to perform quick analysis. Since data stored in an IBM Cognos PowerCube is static, building a PowerCube naturally becomes a repetitive process. Often times cube data is refreshed on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Depending on data volume and the number of dimensions and measures in the cube, the build process can sometimes take hours to complete. In order to ensure the most benefit from the cube, having a scheduled and automated cube build is essential. As many of you know, automated cube building can be easily achieved using Transformer command line options along with a scripting language of your choice. However, prior to the IBM Cognos 8.4 release, deploying the newly refreshed cube file wasnt an easy process. It relied on an external utility to update your IBM Cognos data source connections to use the newly built cube. Today, I will show you a much easier approach that leverages new features in Transformer 10 to enable automated cube building and deployment with just a few easy steps. Case Studies (3) Events (46) Training (17) Newsletter (155) Press Releases (15) Proven Practices (85) Development (10) Infrastructure (20) Modeling (18) Performance (3) Report Studio Cookbook (8) Reporting (38) The general syntax for using command line options with optional arguments is as follows: cogtroption[argument] filename.py?|filename.mdl A few things to consider: On Windows, you can use -n with some options to run Cognos Transformer in batch mode. The option in the command line always starts with a dash (-). Command line options are case-insensitive. Arguments are case-sensitive. You must enclose the argument in double quotation marks if there are spaces inside any argument, for example: cogtr -n mc:\cube model\ Field3.mdl For .py? files, the question mark (?) is replaced by the character that is used in the version of Cognos Transformer, i.e. .pyj or pyi file. You can use more than one option in a command line. If an option that is used in a command line is incompatible with an option that appears earlier in the command line, the earlier option is ignored. Security (4)

Categories

Automated Cube Building and Deployment

Introducing Transformer from the Command Line
The Cognos Transformer command line is capable of performing certain modeling and cube-building tasks on the Windows, UNIX or Linux platforms. You must follow the syntax of the command line to run the desired tasks, such as creating a cube. You may use either an MDL or PJY model file, however best practice dictates the use of the MDL file format whenever possible.

Find Us on Facebook
Ironside Group
Like 141

Twitter Feed

www.ironsidegroup.com/2012/06/05/automating-cube-build-in-ibm-cognos-transformer-10/

1/3

30/09/13

Automating Cube Build in IBM Cognos Transformer 10 | The Ironside Group

When entering command line options, you must specify the name of the .mdl or .py? file at the end of the command line after all the other parameters, for example: cogtr -n -s -mmodel.mdl cogtr -n -s -pmodel.py? For more information about command line options, please review the Transformer User Guide .

Tweets

Follow @IronsideGroup 1h

Ironside Group, Inc. @IronsideGroup Introduction to Data Mining & SPSS Modeler - Miami: When: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 at 8:30 AM... tinyurl.com/p43lb8g #cognos Show Summary Ironside Group, Inc. @IronsideGroup

Transformer Deployment and Activation Strategy

Deployment and Activation is a new feature introduced in version 8.4 that allows the cube file to be automatically copied over to a specified local or network location, activated and/or archived depending on the requirements. Many developers have hesitated to switch to this new approach from the older CubeSwap method. It should be noted that CubeSwap has been deprecated since Cognos 8.4 and as such, no longer works or is supported in Cognos 10.1+. Anyone with PowerPlay cubes who intends to upgrade to Cognos 10 from a prior version should take this into careful consideration.

1h

Join us for a Webinar on 10/8 where we will be discussing Cognos 10.2.1 Rapidly Adaptive Visualization Engine (RAVE). irns.de/1dUbfkA Expand Ironside Group, Inc. @IronsideGroup
27 Sep

Step by Step Demo Instructions

The following demo is designed for use with IBM Cognos 10.1.1 on the Windows platform. 1. Login to IBM Cognos Transformer (assuming you have created a valid model and successfully tested it at least on time to create a PowerCube in Transformer). In this demo, the cube is named Product Sales and model file is saved as ProductSales.mdl file. 2. Create the data source and publish the package for your cube. 3. Open the cube properties, click on the Deployment tab and configure the following settings: Deployment Strategy: select the Copy to available locations, then activate option. This will copy the cube .mdc file to target server location. After building the cube: select Automatically copy and active. Deployment location: add a path for production and/or a place that .mdc file should be deployed too. You can select multiple locations. For instance, the same cube may be deployed to both the Development and Production servers. Check Enable automatic PowerCubes deletion and set the maximum number of cubes to be archived ( i.e. 10 as shown here).

Tweet to @IronsideGroup

Recent Posts
Whats New in Cognos 10.2.1 FP1 and Cognos Insight 10.2.1 The Business Intelligence Maturity Model Report Studio Cookbook: Using the Page Structure View to Build/Edit Advanced Reports Success by design: Planning Your Information Management Infrastructure Ironside Group Public Training Practice Expands to Philadelphia and Washington D.C.

Archives
Select Month

Upcoming Training Events

IBM Cognos 10.2 Report Studio Fundamentals and Advanced Training Course IBM Cognos 10.2 Framework Manager Fundamentals and Advanced Training Courses IBM Cognos Workspace & Cognos Workspace Advanced- Lexington IBM Cognos 10.2 Active Report- Online 4. Save the model, then exit Transformer. 5. Open command prompt. 6. Navigate to the Transformer installation/bin folder. 7. Type in the following command: cogtr.exe -n2 -c -gProductSales -s m C:\Transformer\Models\ProductSales.mdl (Instructor Led) IBM Cognos 10.2 Report Studio Fundamentals and Advanced TrainingPhiladelphia

www.ironsidegroup.com/2012/06/05/automating-cube-build-in-ibm-cognos-transformer-10/

2/3

30/09/13

Automating Cube Build in IBM Cognos Transformer 10 | The Ironside Group

Note: Replace the cube name with the actual cube name and location of your .mdl file. Notice that after the cube build completes, Transformer has automatically deployed and activated the newly generated cube. It doesnt require any changes to the data source connection. The live cube swap is effective immediately. Thats it! With just a few more steps (depending on your environment), you can now schedule the cube build via a job scheduler application, such as Windows Scheduled Tasks. You will not need to manually rebuild or deploy the cube any more as everything will be done automatically on schedule. If you have any questions about automating cube build in your environment, please contact the Ironside Group for more information. We offer packaged solutions for Transformer Automation coupled with our proven Transformer deployment methodology that includes an intelligent scripting suite with the following features and capabilities: Support for multi-server IBM Cognos environments. Change management without modifying Transformer models within your lifecycle. Custom e-mail notification for both users and administrators. Detailed logging to file and database for reporting on cube builds from within Cognos. Trigger builds from ETL processes on other servers. Trigger report execution when cube builds complete. Source code is provided for easy customization to meet your organizations specific requirements and infrastructure.

Related Posts:
The Business Intelligence Maturity Model Whats New in IBM Cognos 10.2.1 Managing Risk with IBMs GRC Business Analytics Solutions The Ironside Group Appoints Francois Ross as Southeast Regional VP How Michigan State University is Leveraging IBM Analytics and Ironside Group to Improve University advancement
0 Tw eet 2 Share 1

Filed Under: Modeling, Newsletter, Proven Practices Play, IBM Cognos Transformer, OLAP, PowerCube

Tagged With: IBM Cognos, IBM Cognos Power

Comments
calvin clack says: August 29, 2012 at 2:12 PM
susan, thanks for the tip. hi to ralph baker.

Return to top of page

2013 The Ironside Group | 131 Hartwell Ave, Suite 215, Lexington, MA | 855-447-6674 | Log in

www.ironsidegroup.com/2012/06/05/automating-cube-build-in-ibm-cognos-transformer-10/

3/3