Product:

Cognos BI 10.1.1

Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 server

Symptom:

Does the anti virus program affect my performance in Cognos BI?

Result:

Yes – you should disable any local active scanning on Cognos BI folders and subfolders.

If you have rules in the Anti virus program – you should test to turn them off, this can increase performance in Cognos BI reporting. Cognos BI use a lot of temp files for report processing.

You must have all antivirus software turned off during install of Cognos BI products, or the installation may fail.

More Information:

<c10_location> refers to the installation directory of each Cognos BI Instance.

Configuration files

<c10_location>\configuration\

Example c:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\c10_64\configuration\

Exclude files of type:

*.ini

*.xml

*.xsd

*.xslt

The configuration folder is a tree structure with several levels. Exclusions should apply to the flder levels and any other subfolder level below.

Temporary files

<c10_location>\temp\

Example c:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\c10_64\temp\

The temp folder is used by Cognos BI to store temporary files used for local operations or cached data.

Files in this folder don’t have any extensions. Files can be differentiated based on their prefix, fx: ‘uda*’. The recommendation is that the entire folder and subfolder structure is excluded from access scanning.

You can inside Cognos Configuration set the environment value for TEMP files to something else than default – if you set to d:\temp you must exclude that folder also from the anti virus scan software.

 

Transformer Cubes

Example c:\Cubes\Current\

File types to exclude: *.mdc

The cubes folder is divided into various subfolders with different levels. Exclusion should apply all folder levels below.

 

Log files

<c10_location>\logs\

Example c:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\c10_64\ logs\

File types to exclude:

*.log

*.xml

*.lck

*.pid

*.service

cbs*  (Note: exclude on prefix, the ‘cbs*’ files does not have extensions)

The logs folder is also a tree structure with different levels below. Exclusions should apply to all levels below.

 

Runtime-models

<c10_location> data\

Example c:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\c10_64\data\

File types to exclude:

*.rtm

*.lck

The runtime models folder is a tree structure with sublevels. Exclusions should apply to all levels below.

 

DEP

Please also do not forget to turn DEP off in Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 servers.

Go to controller panel – system – advanced system settings

Go to system properties – advanced – system performance.

Go to Data Execution Prevention tab and select to top value only.

Click OK.

 

Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is a security feature that can help prevent damage to your computer from viruses and other security threats. Harmful programs can try to attack Windows by attempting to run (also known as execute) code from your computer’s memory reserved for Windows and other authorized programs. These types of attacks can harm your programs and files.

DEP can help protect your computer by monitoring your programs to make sure that they use computer memory safely. If DEP notices a program on your computer using memory incorrectly, it closes the program and notifies you.