Which To Choose: Staff Aug or SaaS Anywhere?
Which To Choose: Staff Aug or SaaS Anywhere?

Just the other day, I was wrangling with a DIY challenge and spent hours trying to make a scattering of suboptimal tools I had work when a short run to the hardware store would have solved all my problems in minutes. In much the same way in analytics consulting, I see my clients sometimes struggling to find the right service for their challenges of the near and long term. In this piece, I’ll share an overview of two seemingly similar service options and discern the right time to engage for each.

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Planning Analytics, Cognos Analytics, Amazon Web Services (AWS)Chris LoechelCognos, Planning Analytics Workspace, IBM Planning Analytics, AWSComment
Cloud-Enable Your Legacy Applications
Cloud-Enable Your Legacy Applications

Many organizations have begun shifting their operations to virtual data centers, modernizing their applications to be cloud-enabled. But what exactly is “cloud-enabled,” and how can they adopt a new cloud architecture? Let’s dive into the meaning of the term and look at some examples to give a better understanding of how these applications can fit into a cloud deployment.

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Amazon Web Services (AWS)Andreea StanoviciThe CloudComment
Controlling Cognos UI Elements
Controlling Cognos UI Elements

One of the most common questions I've heard as I build my extensions is "How can I hide them from my users?". Ensuring users can only see, and interact with, only the features necessary for their job is of paramount importance. Cognos is certainly a confusing tool to the untrained with a huge range of features. Let’s figure out how to control your UI elements.

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Cognos AnalyticsPaul MendelsonCognos Comment
Cognos on Cloud (AWS, Azure, or GCP?)
Cognos on Cloud (AWS, Azure, or GCP?)

Running workloads in the cloud is on everyone’s radar these days. Whether a company is already deployed on the cloud, actively migrating to the cloud, or just thinking about it. For many companies, taking advantage of the scale and the services that public clouds provide is becoming a critical piece of their infrastructure. However, these platforms are large and often complicated for companies looking at them for the first time.

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Cognos AnalyticsChris ChapmanCognos, The Cloud, Cognos to AWS Comment
Kai Ming Uses Cognos Analytics to Help Kids Get Ahead
Kai Ming Uses Cognos Analytics to Help Kids Get Ahead

Data capture and the subsequent reporting were not easy for Kai Ming. Separate local, state, and federal agencies plus private donors and sponsors support Kai Ming. Monthly government-mandated reporting is necessary to maintain funding. Kai Ming’s Governing Board and Parent Council require different formats and content. Furthermore, Dr. Yang needed a comprehensive view of the program, from overall operations to classroom-level analytics and individual family and child records. With the help of PMsquare, Kai-Ming solved its challenges using Cognos.

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Cognos AnalyticsIBMCognos, Success StoryComment
Set Up Row-Level Security in Data Modules by Using queryValue Function
Set Up Row-Level Security in Data Modules by Using queryValue Function

I've been in several situations where a client is hesitant to use a Data Set because of the lack of row-level security. While IBM doesn't provide the same data security functionality for Data Sets and uploaded files, you can easily include row-level security using the queryValue macro function. Let's step through how to do it using an example use case.

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Cognos AnalyticsRory CorneliusRory Cornelius, Cognos Security, Cognos Comments
Be Alerted When an Amazon S3 File is Missing Using Lambda, SNS, and EventBridge
Be Alerted When an Amazon S3 File is Missing Using Lambda, SNS, and EventBridge

Alarms are very helpful in determining the state of certain processes such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) Glue workflows and jobs as part of an ETL pipeline. Ideally, there would be a team assigned to monitor the AWS Glue workflows regularly, but this is not very practical or feasible as many workflows are scheduled to run overnight or during off-hours. Setting up alarms to ensure these workflows successfully finish and don’t error out is key to troubleshooting issues early and maintaining and smooth-running pipeline.

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Amazon Web Services (AWS)Andreea StanoviciAndreea Stanovici, AWS, Amazon S3 Comments
AI Ethics & Explainability for IBM Analytics Practitioners
AI Ethics & Explainability for IBM Analytics Practitioners

With the inevitable, ever-tighter AI integration and infusion with IBM’s products, analytics practitioners need to understand the AI pillars and explainability principles that IBM espouses. These principles should be understood by CA and PA developers, administrators, and product owners, as they will inform the future direction of the AI components of each core product. Most importantly, it will be necessary for doers in our space to use the explainability toolkit in order to explain why models (and integrated, downstream components) predict/project/suggest/decide what they do to our business partners.

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Artificial Intelligence, Cognos Analytics, Planning AnalyticsCraig ColangeloCraig Colangelo, AIComment
Passing AWS Secrets to Microsoft PowerShell
Passing AWS Secrets to Microsoft PowerShell

Secret managers have become the go-to tool to avoid hard coding credentials in source code. Secret managers provide a centralized place to store sensitive data like database credentials and API keys. In Amazon Web Services (AWS) there are two services for storing secrets: AWS Secrets Manager and the Parameter Store. The key to this workflow is specific PowerShell modules that will allow you to script operations of AWS resources directly from the PowerShell command line.

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Amazon Web Services (AWS)Andreea StanoviciAndreea Stanovici, AWS Comments
Amazon QuickSight Complete Guide: Signing Up & Getting Started
Amazon QuickSight Complete Guide: Signing Up & Getting Started

This article is the continuation of the Amazon QuickSight Complete Guide Series, focusing on the topic of getting your QuickSight environment set up and ready to use. If you haven’t checked out the first installment of the Amazon QuickSight Complete Guide, covering Pricing and Editions, I would recommend you take a couple of minutes to check it out. The series of QuickSight posts will detail everything you need to know about QuickSight as well as some walkthroughs of the main tools.

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Amazon Web Services (AWS)Kyle McIvorAWS, Amazon QuickSight Complete Guide, Kyle McIvor, QuickSight Comment
What Is Data Mesh? | The 4 Principles of Data Mesh
What Is Data Mesh? | The 4 Principles of Data Mesh

If you’re tuned in to trends and thought leadership in the world of data and analytics, you may have caught wind of the phrase “data mesh”. This article seeks to explain the concepts of data mesh in a succinct manner to those who have been immersed for some time in the realm of data and business intelligence/business analytics but haven’t yet learned enough to decide whether data mesh is just a trendy catch-phrase or a substantive new approach that can significantly improve the business value derived from data. (We firmly believe it’s the latter.)

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Mike DeGeusData Mesh, Mike DeGeusComment
3 Reasons to Love Amazon QuickSight
3 Reasons to Love Amazon QuickSight

QuickSight is rapidly evolving into a top-notch BI and data visualization tool and even entered the Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI this last year. QuickSight is fundamentally a very good visualization and reporting platform, but with all the options available in the crowded BI market, what are the top reasons to choose Amazon QuickSight?

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Amazon Web Services (AWS)PMsquare Cognos Analytics Consulting TeamAWS, QuickSight, Ryan DolleyComment
Making a Responsive Mobile-Ready Cognos Report
Making a Responsive Mobile-Ready Cognos Report

IBM has recently released a "mobile app" designed to allow users to use dashboards and ask questions to the AI assistant. It works, but what it doesn't do is allow the consumption of pixel-perfect reports. When building a mobile-ready report, there are a few fundamental principles to adhere to. Read my article to make yourself a responsive mobile-ready Cognos report that pops.

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Cognos AnalyticsPaul MendelsonCognos, Paul MendelsonComment
Architecting IBM Cognos for Multi-AZ
Architecting IBM Cognos for Multi-AZ

A key concept to understand when migrating to AWS is the physical distribution of cloud resources. AWS organizes its global infrastructure into Regions and Availability Zones (AZ). An AZ consists of one or more discrete data centers within a Region. When you deploy resources in AWS you must define the Region those resources are deployed to and one or more AZs. AWS best practices encourage deployments to be spread across multiple AZs (Multi-AZ) instead of isolating them to a single AZ. Why is this recommended? Read to find out more.

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Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cognos AnalyticsChris ChapmanChris Chapman, AWS, Cognos to AWS, CognosComment
Robotic Process Automation... What Is It and Why Does It Matter?
Robotic Process Automation... What Is It and Why Does It Matter?

One of the key focus areas for many organizations around the world today is automation. Whether it stems from growing customer demands, more complex tasks involved with delivering services, or the explosion of remote workplaces as a result of the pandemic, companies are more eager to embed automation into their processes today than ever before.

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RPAKevin EmanuelRPA (Robotic Process Automation), Kevin EmanuelComment