IBM Cognos

This article explains how to connect IBM Cognos to Exasol using JDBC.

For more information about IBM Cognos, refer to the IBM Cognos website.

Exasol takes no responsibility for changes in functionality or terms of use for third-party tools. For more details about the compatibility and use of these tools with Exasol, refer to the respective software vendor’s website.

Environment

The following procedure uses IBM Cognos on Windows.

Prerequisites

  • Your Exasol SaaS database must be running. For more information, see Database Management.

  • The IP address of the host where the tool is running must be in the allowed IP address list. For more information, see Network Security.

  • Exasol JDBC driver is installed
  • IBM Cognos 11.1.3 or later is installed

Get JDBC Driver and Connection Details

To connect to your Exasol SaaS database from a tool you need a valid connection string. You must also allow network access to the database from the tool, and make sure that the latest Exasol JDBC driver is installed.

  1. On the Databases page in the web console, click on Connect via tools on the cluster that you want to connect to.

    connect via tools

  2. In the wizard, enter the IP address of the client or server that will connect to the database and click Add IP, then click Next. This will add the IP address to the list of IP addresses that are allowed network access to the cluster. The allow list is found on the Security page in the web console. For more information, see Network Security.

    If the IP address is already present in the allow list, just click Next.

    enter ip address

  3. If the latest JDBC driver for your operating system is not already installed, select the driver type and operating system and click on Download to download the latest driver to your local system. For more information about how to install the driver, see JDBC Driver.

    download driver

  4. Click on Next to view your connection details:

    connection details

  5. Copy the Connection string, Port, and User name values from the Connect details dialog. You will need to enter these details in the tool that should connect to the Exasol SaaS database.

  6. To generate a new Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication in the client, click on the Password row, then click on Copy to copy the PAT to your clipboard. For more information, see Personal Access Token.

    generated pat

    The generated PAT is only shown once and cannot be retrieved after you have closed the wizard.

  7. Click on Done to close the wizard.

Connect IBM Cognos to Exasol

Step 1: Install the Exasol JDBC driver in IBM Cognos

  1. Copy the JDBC driver file - exajdbc.jar (...\EXASOL\Exasol-version\JDBC) into IBM Cognos.
  2. Restart the IBM Cognos service.

For additional information, refer to the JDBC driver section.

Step 2: Connect IBM Cognos with the Exasol Database

  1. On the IBM Cognos Connection screen, click on Launch and select IBM Cognos Administration.

  2. On the Configuration tab, click on the New Data Source icon to create a new data source.

  3. Enter a name for the new data source, then click on Next.
  4. In the New Data Source wizard, for Type select JDBC, then click on Next.
  5. In the next screen, enter the following properties to specify the connection string: 
    • Type: Exasol
    • JDBC URL: jdbc:exa:<host-range>:<port>
    • Connection properties: SCHEMA=xxx - This step is optional. You can enter the value if you want to set a default schema as part of the connection.
    • Driver class name: com.exasol.jdbc.EXADriver
    • Signon: Enter the User ID (username) and Password (PAT) for your database.

  6. Click on Test the connection to open a wizard where you can test your connection.

  7. Click on Test. If the connection is successful, you will see the status Succeeded.