VOOZH about

URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/elasticsearch-cloud-cognos-analytics.rst

⇱ Analyze Elasticsearch Data in Cognos Analytics

Analyze Elasticsearch Data in Cognos Analytics

👁 Dibyendu Datta
Dibyendu Datta
Lead Technology Evangelist
Use CData Connect AI to connect to Elasticsearch Data from Cognos Analytics and analyze live Elasticsearch data.

Cognos Analytics, powered by IBM Watson®, empowers users to cleanse and establish connections with their data while creating visualizations. When integrated with CData Connect AI, users gain immediate, real-time connectivity between cloud-based data sources and Cognos Analytics, facilitating data management, visualization, analytics, and more. This article provides step-by-step guidance on connecting to Elasticsearch via CData Connect AI and subsequently analyzing Elasticsearch data within Cognos Analytics.

NOTE: These instructions require Cognos Analytics 11.2.4 or higher

CData Connect AI offers a dedicated cloud-to-cloud interface for Elasticsearch, enabling users to perform real-time analysis on Elasticsearch data within Cognos without the need to replicate data to a natively supported database. Equipped with built-in optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently directs all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to Elasticsearch. This harnesses server-side processing to promptly provide the requested Elasticsearch data.

About Elasticsearch Data Integration

Accessing and integrating live data from Elasticsearch has never been easier with CData. Customers rely on CData connectivity to:

  • Access both the SQL endpoints and REST endpoints, optimizing connectivity and offering more options when it comes to reading and writing Elasticsearch data.
  • Connect to virtually every Elasticsearch instance starting with v2.2 and Open Source Elasticsearch subscriptions.
  • Always receive a relevance score for the query results without explicitly requiring the SCORE() function, simplifying access from 3rd party tools and easily seeing how the query results rank in text relevance.
  • Search through multiple indices, relying on Elasticsearch to manage and process the query and results instead of the client machine.

Users frequently integrate Elasticsearch data with analytics tools such as Crystal Reports, Power BI, and Excel, and leverage our tools to enable a single, federated access layer to all of their data sources, including Elasticsearch.

For more information on CData's Elasticsearch solutions, check out our Knowledge Base article: CData Elasticsearch Driver Features & Differentiators.


Getting Started


Configure Elasticsearch Connectivity for Cognos Analytics

Connectivity to Elasticsearch from Cognos Analytics is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Elasticsearch data from Cognos Analytics, we start by creating and configuring a Elasticsearch connection.

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "Elasticsearch" from the Add Connection panel
    3. 👁 Selecting a data source
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Elasticsearch.

    Set the Server and Port connection properties to connect. To authenticate, set the User and Password properties, PKI (public key infrastructure) properties, or both. To use PKI, set the SSLClientCert, SSLClientCertType, SSLClientCertSubject, and SSLClientCertPassword properties.

    The data provider uses X-Pack Security for TLS/SSL and authentication. To connect over TLS/SSL, prefix the Server value with 'https://'. Note: TLS/SSL and client authentication must be enabled on X-Pack to use PKI.

    Once the data provider is connected, X-Pack will then perform user authentication and grant role permissions based on the realms you have configured.

    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Elasticsearch Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

  1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
  2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
  3. Give the PAT a name and click Create. 👁 Creating a new PAT
  4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Elasticsearch data from Cognos Analytics.

Connect to Elasticsearch from Cognos Analytics

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Cognos Analytics to analyze live Elasticsearch data.

Download and install the CData Connect AI JDBC driver

  1. Open the Integrations page of CData Connect AI.
  2. Search for and select JDBC.
  3. Download and run the setup file.
  4. When the installation is complete, copy the JAR file (cdata.jdbc.connect.jar) from the installation directory (e.g., C:\Program Files\CData\JDBC Driver for CData Connect\lib) to the "drivers" folder in your Cognos Analytics installation directory.

Configure the Connection to CData Connect AI

  1. Open IBM Cognos and navigate to Manage > Data server connections.
  2. Click the icon to add a data server.
  3. Select CData Connect AI.
  4. Set JDBC URL to the appropriate connection string. For example: 
     jdbc:connect:AuthScheme=Basic;user=username;password=PAT;
  5. Set Driver class name to "cdata.jdbc.connect.ConnectDriver"
  6. Create and store authenticate credentials by selecting an authentication method
    • Set Username to your CData Connect AI username (e.g., [email protected])
    • Set Password to the PAT you previously generated.
  7. Click Test connection to confirm that the connection succeeds. 👁 Connecting to CData Connect AI from Cognos Analytics

At this point, you are ready to analyze and visualize Elasticsearch data in Cognos Analytics. For more information about using Cognos Analytics, please refer to the Cognos Analytics documentation.

Live Access to Elasticsearch Data for Analytics

Now you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Elasticsearch data from Cognos Analytics. You can create new visualizations, build reports, and more — without replicating Elasticsearch data.

Try CData Connect AI and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.