We are looking for some options if we can connect Mainframe Focus Databases to Cognos Reporting Tool. If anybody have any knowledge or any document on this, that will be helpful.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kerry,

Heavens!!!!!!!!!

I think for FOCUS go WebFOCUS unless you don't buy licence. Not understanding why from Cognos to FOCUS.

Perhaps iWay sell adapter you need. Suggest contact to local IB agent for answer?

Kofi

A 3GL to FOCUS data bases requires the use of HLI or High-level Language Interface. It is extra-charge and is an API. FOCUS data bases are a proprietary structure as as such cannot be read directly. I would recommend extracting the FOCUS data into flat files to use the Cognos tool.

Why do you need to do this anyway?

Till now for creating reports from focus database. we have a team that write code in Focus and create the reports and send to clients.

Now we are looking for options wherein clients can creat reports direclty from cognos reporting tool. Much like Web Focus do the work.

So the first thing we need to see is if Cognos reporting tool can connect to mainframe focus database..

I may sound dubious at this point of time as i also don't have any information on anything. We are just looking for various options. But Web Focus is too costly to purchase. So we are not looking for that option

FOCUS databases are Information Builders proprietary and only their software can access them.

You're replacing WebFOCUS with Cognos? What makes you sure that Cognos will be cheaper than WebFOCUS?

We are looking for Cognos because some project in company has already using Cognos reporting tool but they don't have any knowledge regarding connection of mainframe focus. So we are leveraging the already available tool.

Cognos reporting tool can access DB2 tables in mainframes through ODBC, same way we are looking for options if cognos can connect to Focus database in mainframe.

As I said, you need HLI. Contact the local IBI office for pricing and whether it would work which I doubt.

Your best bet would be to use FOCUS to extract the data into something that Cognos could read.

What a shame!

Additionally, (and this may be outdated) just because someone in the company uses Cognos, that doesn't mean everyone in the company can use it. You're going to have to make a mjor purchase either way. If FOCUS is so important to the company that you can't move away from those databases, stick with something that CAN use them, in addition to doing all the stuff that Cognos can do.

Also, if you end up with WebFOCUS, then you could expose the FOCUS DB's via ODBC to Cognos.
You gett he best of both worlds.