Part of my job as an Admin is to understand all aspects of the Cognos environment, from configuring and tuning distributed systems to being able to decipher the cryptic error messages that occasionally plague the users. Obviously this book is not for me. This book is more geared for beginners, as it says in the beginning:
Who this book is for
This book is for beginners planning to learn IBM Cognos BI Administration 10.
So, with that in mind it’s important to remember that experienced admins can skip the book. It is the people with little or no administrative experience who will benefit most from the book.
My concern is the length, at 128 pages there is simply not enough room to go into detail on everything. While it gives descriptions on the various tabs and settings of the administration page, I would have preferred more explanations on the settings and their effects.
Despite the brevity it does cover, albeit briefly, the various elements that are involved in the administrative process. The chapters are split by area of interest, configuration, components, security, etc. It describes the what happens when Cognos gets a request and the path the request takes from the gateway through the dispatcher. It explains the authentication and security system fairly well. Most importantly it also provides advice for new admins on how to run the system.
Ultimately I believe the book succeeds in its goal, namely taking people to the point where they can keep a Cognos server up and running.
You can find the book at the PacktPub website here.