Cognos BI Servers Convert to Red Hat Linux

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2015

Miami-Dade County has been running their IBM Cognos Business Intelligence environments on the System z mainframes using the Novell SUSE operating system since 2009. In September 2013, a Management decision was made to convert the County’s distribution of the operating system (OS) from SUSE to RedHat Linux. After validating that IBM Cognos was certified to execute on Red Hat, a year-long project was developed and executed to move the 4 Cognos environments (Test, Development, Production Internet and Production Intranet) to the new OS. This project entailed the re-installation of all Cognos and third-party Cognos software into the environments, re-configuration, testing and redeployment of all Linux servers for the Cognos 10.1.1 environments. Each environment consists of 2 Linux servers and each server contains 8 different components, and interfaces with 12 different Windows web gateways, which also required a re-configuration. Incorporated into this project was the overall training of installing the Cognos software on the Red Hat Linux operating system, the installation of the Cognos software by a new staff member, streamlining the installation and operational process as well as a cost savings for the County by switching to Red Hat.