Database considerations

The main MONITOR database stores the IBM® Business Monitor configuration, monitor model metadata, and monitored data. The IBM Cognos® Business Intelligence configuration is stored in a separate IBM Cognos BI content store database named COGNOSCS. Profile creation assumes that both the MONITOR and COGNOSCS database are created in the same database instance. If you already have the required level of IBM Cognos BI installed and running, you do not need to create an IBM Cognos BI content store database. The existing IBM Cognos BI server will have the content store database.

You can use a common database user name for the MONITOR and COGNOSCS databases. However, you might want to use separate names because IBM Cognos BI creates its own content store tables in the schema of the provided database name when IBM Cognos BI first starts.

The MONITOR database is also used to store schemas for the following components during stand-alone profile creation:

Business Space
Common event infrastructure (CEI) messaging engine message store
IBM Business Monitor messaging engine message store

If you are not using a stand-alone profile, you can use the same database or different databases for these components, and additionally for the CEI data store, which is not required and therefore is not created or enabled by default.

For production environments, you can choose from the following supported database products:

DB2®
DB2 for z/OS®
Oracle
Microsoft SQL Server

Multiple types of data are stored in the MONITOR database. When you create the IBM Business Monitor profile or run the database scripts, you create database tables that contain configuration data for IBM Business Monitor. Later, when each monitor model is installed, additional tables are created to store data for that monitor model. When events are processed, monitor model instance data is stored in these tables. The dashboards then refer to these tables.

Tip: In a network deployment environment, create the MONITOR and COGNOSCS databases before starting the deployment manager and creating other custom profiles.

Tip: If your database product is MS SQL Server, and the COGNOSCS database is remote from the IBM Cognos BI server, you must install a database client on the IBM Cognos BI server machine. See the details in the database-specific database consideration topics.

Creating the databases

There are several ways to create the MONITOR and COGNOSCS databases.

If the database software is installed on the same server as IBM Business Monitor, you can have the Profile Management Tool or the manageprofiles command create local databases when the profile is created.
Note:
- For DB2, the user who creates the profile must have credentials to create the database.
- For Oracle or SQL Server, a database administrator user ID and password must be provided to the Profile Management Tool or manageprofiles command so that database objects can be created in an existing database instance.

You can have the profile management function generate database scripts, using the configuration values that were selected when the profile was created. Select the profile creation option to delay execution of database scripts and, at a later time, run the generated scripts to create the database objects on the database server.
You can manually create the database using scripts provided on the installation media or in the IBM Business Monitor installation dbscripts directory. Variables in the scripts can be configured manually.
Important: Use this option with DB2 for z/OS.

In the MONITOR database, if you rename the table spaces for example data, then when you are creating the schema for monitor models, you must export the create schema scripts and change the table space names to match the names that were used during initial database creation.

Database size

The IBM Business Monitor database scripts for the MONITOR database create multiple table spaces to store data. The table space names and configuration can be altered depending on the enterprise standards and performance and sizing requirements. For development and test installations with minimal amounts of data, 1 GB of database storage should be sufficient. For production environments, size the database based on the amount of data that you intend to monitor.

Securing the databases

When the databases are created, the runtime database user is granted privileges to administer database objects by default, which simplifies the creation of the databases and enables the IBM Business Monitor server to automatically manage the monitor model database schema when models are deployed and removed. If you must secure the databases, see Securing the database environment and Configuring IBM Cognos BI security.