Cognos container

[dougp]

I'm investigating migrating my on prem Cognos offering to the cloud using containers.  I have looked at...
https://www.ibm.com/software/passportadvantage/containerlicenses.html
https://www.ibm.com/topics/containers
...but there is not much actionable intel there.  Most of the links on the container licenses page lead to advertising, not technical information.
https://www.ibm.com/topics/containers says

Software needs to be designed and packaged differently in order to take advantage of containers

I assume that means that the installation files I find on Passport Advantage Online and Fix Central won't work.

Is there such a thing as an IBM Cognos Analytics Server container that I can download?

I have asked for a place to begin work.  The folks that would provide that are asking for requirements:

Kubernetes Version
Availability zones for the management panel requirements
Automated upgrade of kube or not.
Pool nodes.
Access levels – RBAC / AD, etcs
Networking requirements from vendors.
...and other items that are not specified

I don't even know where to start.

How is Cognos installed in a container?  Do I simply download the container and have my infrastructure folks put it somewhere?  Does that resolve the aforementioned "requirements" need?  Or do I get the container built first, then install Cognos?

This seemed like a far simpler solution at first blush, but it's turning out to be way more complicated than just installing on bare metal.  To the cloud!

Any help is appreciated.

[MFGF]

I'm investigating migrating my on prem Cognos offering to the cloud using containers.  I have looked at...
https://www.ibm.com/software/passportadvantage/containerlicenses.html
https://www.ibm.com/topics/containers
...but there is not much actionable intel there.  Most of the links on the container licenses page lead to advertising, not technical information.
https://www.ibm.com/topics/containers saysI assume that means that the installation files I find on Passport Advantage Online and Fix Central won't work.

Is there such a thing as an IBM Cognos Analytics Server container that I can download?

I have asked for a place to begin work.  The folks that would provide that are asking for requirements:

Kubernetes Version
Availability zones for the management panel requirements
Automated upgrade of kube or not.
Pool nodes.
Access levels – RBAC / AD, etcs
Networking requirements from vendors.
...and other items that are not specified

I don't even know where to start.

How is Cognos installed in a container?  Do I simply download the container and have my infrastructure folks put it somewhere?  Does that resolve the aforementioned "requirements" need?  Or do I get the container built first, then install Cognos?

This seemed like a far simpler solution at first blush, but it's turning out to be way more complicated than just installing on bare metal.  To the cloud!

Any help is appreciated.

Hi Doug,

I'll caveat this at the beginning by saying I'm as far from being an expert in containerization as you can get :-)

IBM has already built installs for Cognos Analytics running in containers. The install sets up ten different pods/components - you can see them listed on this page:

https://catalog.redhat.com/software/container-stacks/detail/5e9873003f398525a0ceafcd

I believe there is a Kubernetes prerequisite to be using Red Hat Openshift version 4.6 or 4.8.

You're not going to see the installers for the containerized version of Cognos Analytics in the Passport Advantage site unless you either have licenses for the Cognos Analytics cartridge for Cloud Pak for Data, or licenses for what IBM terms "IBM Cognos Analytics Modernization" - which is a new license type that allows you to run either the non-containerized or the containerized version of Cognos Analytics.

In terms of installation instructions, you might want to point your folks to the instructions for installing Cloud Pak for Data v4.6 to give them an idea of prerequisites etc:

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cloud-paks/cp-data/4.6.x?topic=installing

Also, I located a blog article on the IBM Community that walks through installing Cognos Analytics in containers. The article is more than two years old, though, so probably isn't up to date. Since that time IBM has changed the architecture to use more pods than previously.

https://community.ibm.com/community/user/businessanalytics/blogs/robert-hofstetter1/2021/01/07/modernize-your-cognos-analytics-architecture

In short, it's not a simple install, but the installers are available in PA if you have the right licenses.

Hope this gives you at least a vague steer in the right direction.

Cheers!

MF.

[dougp]

Thanks.  That's what I was afraid of.  IBM support basically said the same thing:  CP4D on OpenShift is the only supported option.  But since I doubt we'll ever use RedHat OpenShift here, this is probably not an option for me.
Thanks for the info.