What is our primary use case?
I have many use cases. Now, we are not using building a queue, but we are using Cognos Analytics for dashboarding, operational dashboarding, and all. We are using normal standard reports and tabular reports. I think I don’t know the exact version of Cognos, but we use studios to build those operation reports.
How has it helped my organization?
OBIE and Cognos, now our business users are not using much because it takes a lot of time to run. We need infrastructure. We need a lot of resources. Whatever we developed a couple of years back, that is the only thing running by the business users, by the control jobs.
We don't do major development in both the tools now. Our main development is now in Power BI and Tableau.
What is most valuable?
There used to be many valuable features, but in the last three or four years, whatever IBM is doing with enhancements, it has taken a lot of time to build and develop.
But the best usage of Cognos is the ad hoc analysis reports. I really like that. Our customers also like that. But now the usage of Cognos and OBIE is reduced by various business users because people and business users are now more focused on analytics, slice and dice, and the dashboard, and the widgets.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for more than 15 years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
When I used to work on that project, we supported more than 2,000 users. That project is still there, but I’m not primarily supporting and working on it now.
After version 10.3 or 11.3, I stopped working because customers were switching from IBM Cognos to other tools.
How are customer service and support?
My prior experience with customer service and support was good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I’m a BI architect. I’m a technical architect. So, I have experience with various tools to start with Cognos, Power BI, then OBIE, Tableau.
The difference between these products lies in terms of the setup, mainly the setup, and the availability of resources. Power BI is a good tool. It is easy to set up. Then, licensing cost and infrastructure. It is available on the cloud. One of the projects we just finished is using the cloud services of Power BI.
How was the initial setup?
It was straightforward. Now I did not work on setting up the environment. I used to work a lot on the administration side. But since the last three, four years, I did not work on it.
But I hear from various people that setting up Docker, setting up LDAP, and setting up a metadata database is time-consuming. Also, deploying under which app server, like WebSphere or Tomcat, is also a little bit time-consuming. That’s what I hear from our Cognos administration.
What about the implementation team?
We have a solid team. We have a metadata developer, a Cognos admin team, and a BI COE team who are very much experts in BI tools.
We do need some maintenance. Sometimes, those jobs did not run or took a lot of time to execute in the environment. Then, we need to contact the admin team, and they will take a look. If they think it is a database issue or a common issue, then they restart. Those things are there.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is a costly product; it is comparatively expensive. It is very hard to get the resources because no one wants to work on Cognos. They want to work on multiple BI tools. So, I would rate the pricing model an eight out of ten.
It is expensive because you need infrastructure, you need a metadata database, you need Tomcat or WebSphere or WebLogic to deploy Cognos.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten. I would recommend it to other users.
In operational reporting, the standard reporting, Cognos is the number one tool still in the market.
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.