Getting started

Virtually everything you can do with the IBM® Cognos® graphical user interface, you can do using the appropriate API, XML file, or command line utility. The IBM Cognos Software Development Kit provides a platform-independent automation interface for working with IBM Cognos services and components. You can use the Software Development Kit to create custom reports, manage deployment, and integrate security and portal functionality to suit your individual needs, locale, and existing software infrastructure. The Software Development Kit uses a collection of cross-platform Web services, libraries, and programming interfaces.

IBM Cognos integrates easily into existing software or portals by providing the BI Bus API, which accommodates many programming languages. You can choose to automate only a specific task or you can program the entire process, from modeling through to reporting, scheduling, and distribution.

The IBM Cognos Web-based architecture is built around the following industry standards:

  • Web Services Description Language (WSDL)
  • Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), with XML and HTTP

WSDL is an XML-based language used to define the services provided by a server. IBM Cognos software is designed to take advantage of this Web service technology which, like SOAP and XML, is platform-independent and fully scalable.

Although .NET Framework and Java™ interfaces are provided as a convenience for developers, the main value-added component of the Software Development Kit is the IBM Cognos WSDL file, Cognos.wsdl. This file defines the services provided and the methods supported by each service.

Think of the WSDL file as the service contract between a server and its clients. Client applications send XML-based SOAP messages to IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson servers. These servers interpret the requests, which are formatted using SOAP, HTTP, and MIME standards. The servers then retrieve, save, and deliver the specified reports and queries to the clients.

SOAP messages are encoded in XML and then transmitted using HTTP. Because these technologies work on all IBM Cognos platforms, components can be distributed among Windows, UNIX, and Linux® servers to optimize query performance.

The SOAP standard and the IBM Cognos WSDL file specify how to encode an XML-structured message. If a program on one computer is set up to call a program on another computer, SOAP specifies the format and the content of the communication. For example, when a Software Development Kit user requests a report from the content store, the XML data is retrieved, enclosed in a SOAP envelope, and then returned.

The interfaces provided with the Software Development Kit eliminate the need to construct actual SOAP messages.

When you work with the BI Bus API, you are working with the central communications channel between IBM Cognos services. The Software Development Kit turns commands into SOAP messages that the BI Bus API then delivers to the appropriate services. The BI Bus API wraps each XML-formatted request or response in a SOAP envelope and transmits it using HTTP.

The BI Bus API is based on SOAP 1.1. For more information about setting up the Software Development Kit for the .NET Framework and the Java programming language, see The .NET Framework toolkit and The Java toolkit.

By following the reporting examples (see Reporting examples) in this document, you will learn to address the BI Bus API and the command line utilities available to automate IBM Cognos tasks. These examples cover just a few of the methods that can be used to automate any functionality of IBM Cognos software. For more information, see the IBM Cognos Software Development Kit Developer Guide and the Framework Manager Developer Guide.

Before you begin programming using the Software Development Kit, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the IBM Cognos user interface.