Cognos 8 BI

I am doing IBM certification and came to know about the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence want to know more about this. Will you please tell me what is this use for and also tell me what the components of Cognos 8 BI also provide me complete features of this Cognos 8 BI?

[Shaleen]

IBM Cognos Business Intelligence is a web-based, integrated business intelligence suite by IBM. It provides a toolset for reporting, analysis, score carding, and monitoring of events and metrics.

Basic components

Cognos Connection
Query Studio
Report Studio
Analysis Studio
Event Studio

About Congos 8 BI:

IBM Cognos 8 BI, initially launched in September 2005, combined the features of several previous products, including ReportNet, PowerPlay, Metrics Manager, NoticeCast, and DecisionStream.

There are also Express and Extended versions of Cognos 8 BI.

Full features:

Report Studio (Professional report authoring tool formatted for the web)
Query Studio (Ad hoc report authoring tool with instant data preview)
Analysis Studio (Explore multi-dimensional cube data to answer business questions)
Metric Studio (Monitor, analyze, and report on KPIs)
Metric Designer (Define, load, and maintain metrics to be available in Metric Studio)
Event Studio (Action based agents to notify decision makers as events happen)
Framework Manager (Semantic metadata layer tool which creates models or packages)
PowerPlay Studio (formerly PowerPlay Web)
Analytic Applications (Packaged BI Applications, built on an adaptable platform and extensible into Business Analytics)

IBM Cognos Express, launched in September 2009 and is an integrated business intelligence and planning solution purpose-built to meet the needs of midsize companies.

The features of Express are:

Cognos Express Reporter (Self-service reporting and ad hoc query)
Cognos Express Advisor (Freeform analysis and visualization)
Cognos Express Xcelerator (TM1-based planning and business analysis, with Microsoft Excel and web interfaces)

IBM Cognos also offers several Application Development Tools:

IBM Cognos PowerHouse 4GL
IBM Cognos PowerHouse Web
IBM Cognos Axiant 4GL