Cognos Upgrades

Owned by Saparnell
Last updated: Feb 13, 2023

IBM Cognos releases new features, bug fixes and more several times of year as Cognos Upgrades.  It is important for UCSD to upgrade their Cognos environments at least once a year, depending on stability and contents of each upgrade, in order to take advantage of the new capabilities and keep current with security features.  ITS-BIA will communicate upgrade contents and schedules via email to the cognos-developer-l@ucsd.edu mail list and via Team to the Teams Cognos Community of Practice.

You can find information on what’s in this each upgrade here:  https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEP7J_11.1.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.ca_new.doc/c_ca_nf_11_1_7_container.html

Cognos developer report testing at the beginning of the upgrade is critical to a timely and successful upgrade.

All upgrades for Cognos Analytics occur in place. High level, the strategy for all upgrades is:

  1. ITS-BIA will review the upgrade in our sandbox prior to planning an upgrade of DEV
  2. Perform upgrades of the DEV environment on the weekend before the 3rd week of a month as this is generally the quietest period of the month for most teams.
  3. Allow one (1) week for review of the upgrade in the DEV environment.
    1. Report developers are expected to review new features and test their existing content for any issues.
    2. Issues should be reported to busintel@ucsd.edu with the subject "Cognos Upgrade"
    3. At the end of the week a GO/ROLLBACK determination will be made.
    4. GO – the upgrade is applied to QA over the weekend following the DEV upgrade (Upgrade is NOT applied to PROD at this time).
    5. ROLLBACK – the upgrade is rolled back from DEV
    6. During the one week period where DEV has been upgraded and QA / PROD have not, all teams will be in a “code freeze” in that no migrations from DEV can occur.
  4. Allow two (2) weeks for review of the upgrade in the QA environment.
    1. At the end of the week a GO/ROLLBACK determination will be made.
    2. GO – the upgrade is applied to PROD over the weekend following the QA upgrade.
    3. ROLLBACK – the upgrade is rolled back from DEV and QA.
    4. During the one week period where DEV and QA have been upgraded and PROD has not, all teams will be in a “code freeze” in that no migrations to PROD can occur. Migrations from DEV to QA may be conducted.
  5. Upgrade the PROD environment.
    1. Based on GO determination from both Cognos QA and Cognos DEV environments based directly on your feedback.