28 Solving Operational Business Intelligence with InfoSphere Warehouse Advanced Edition
The COGNODB metadata database contains the information needed by the
Cognos BI server and Cognos Frameworks. This includes such items as the
reports created, data source connections, and the modelling information used
within Cognos Frameworks.
There should never be a reason for direct connection to either of these metadata
databases by users or administrators, with only the respective runtime
applications requiring to make connections to access the data within. With this in
mind, both products supply tools for the administration of these metadata
databases because without them, the runtime element of InfoSphere Warehouse
and the Cognos BI server will not function.
Storing important business data is not the only function that DB2 has to perform.
A major part of any data warehouse is the requirement to perform ETL processes
upon the contained data. It is because of this requirement that the full power,
performance, and functionality of DB2 can be applied.
The second major component of InfoSphere Data Warehouse is the runtime
application component. This enterprise Java application performs a number of
important functions within the complete solution, including:
The administration console for the InfoSphere Warehouse solution
Storing, executing, and managing the ETL processes
Storing and managing the cubing services
Storing and managing the data mining services
Figure 2-3 shows the InfoSphere Warehouse Administration Console.
Figure 2-3 InfoSphere Warehouse Administration Console