Installing Cognos Dashboards

A project administrator can install Cognos Dashboards on IBM® Cloud Pak for Data.

Permissions you need for this task: You must be an administrator of the OpenShift® project (Kubernetes namespace) where you will deploy Cognos Dashboards.

Information you need to complete this task

Cognos Dashboards needs only the restricted security context constraint (SCC).
Cognos Dashboards must be installed in the same project as Cloud Pak for Data.
Cognos Dashboards requires the Cloud Pak for Data common core services. If the common core services are not installed in the project where you plan to install Cognos Dashboards, the common core services will be automatically installed when you install Cognos Dashboards, which will increase the amount of time the installation takes to complete.
Cognos Dashboards uses the following storage classes. If you don't use these storage classes on your cluster, ensure that you have a storage class with an equivalent definition:
- OpenShift Container Storage: ocs-storagecluster-cephfs
- IBM Spectrum®: ibm-spectrum-scale-sc
- NFS: managed-nfs-storage
- Portworx: portworx-shared-gp3
- IBM Cloud File Storage: ibmc-file-gold-gid or ibm-file-custom-gold-gid

Before you begin

Ensure that the cluster meets the minimum requirements for installing Cognos Dashboards. For details, see System requirements.

Additionally, ensure that a cluster administrator completed the required Pre-installation tasks for your environment. Specifically, verify that a cluster administrator completed the following tasks:

Cloud Pak for Data is installed. For details, see Installing Cloud Pak for Data.
For environments that use a private container registry, such as air-gapped environments, the Cognos Dashboards software images are mirrored to the private container registry. For details, see Mirroring images to your container registry.
The cluster is configured to pull the Cognos Dashboards software images. For details, see Configuring your cluster to pull images.
The Cognos Dashboards catalog source exists. For details, see Creating catalog sources.
The Cognos Dashboards operator subscription exists. For details, see Creating operator subscriptions.

If these tasks are not complete, the Cognos Dashboards installation will fail.

Procedure

Complete the following tasks to install Cognos Dashboards:

Installing the service
Verifying the installation
What to do next

Installing the service

To install Cognos Dashboards:

Log in to Red Hat® OpenShift Container Platform as a user with sufficient permissions to complete the task:
```
oc login OpenShift_URL:port
```

Create a CdeProxyService custom resource to install Cognos Dashboards. Follow the appropriate guidance for your environment.

Important: By creating a CdeProxyService custom resource with spec.license.accept: true, you are accepting the license terms for Cognos Dashboards. You can find links to the relevant licenses in IBM Cloud Pak for Data License Information.

The cluster uses the recommended storage class names

The recommended storage class names are described in Setting up shared persistent storage.

Create a custom resource with the following format.

cat <<EOF |oc apply -f -
apiVersion: cde.cpd.ibm.com/v1
kind: CdeProxyService
metadata:
  name: cdeproxyservice-cr     # This is the recommended name, but you can change it
  namespace: project-name     # Replace with the project where you will install Cognos Dashboards
spec:
  license:
    accept: true
    license: Enterprise | Standard     # Specify the license you purchased.
  version: 4.0.9
  storageVendor: nfs | ocs | portworx     # Specify the type of storage to use, such as ocs
EOF

The cluster uses custom storage class names

Important: Use a storage class with attributes similar to the storage class described in the Service persistent storage requirements section of Storage requirements.

Create a custom resource with the following format.

cat <<EOF |oc apply -f -
apiVersion: cde.cpd.ibm.com/v1
kind: CdeProxyService
metadata:
  name: cdeproxyservice-cr     # This is the recommended name, but you can change it
  namespace: project-name     # Replace with the project where you will install Cognos Dashboards
spec:
  license:
    accept: true
    license: Enterprise | Standard     # Specify the license you purchased
  version: 4.0.9
  storageClass: storage-class-name     # See the guidance in "Information you need to complete this task"
EOF

When you create the custom resource, the Cognos Dashboards operator installs Cognos Dashboards.

Verifying the installation

When you create the custom resource, the Cognos Dashboards operator processes the contents of the custom resource and starts up the microservices that comprise Cognos Dashboards, including CdeProxyService. (The CdeProxyService microservice is defined by the cdeproxyservice-cr custom resource.) Cognos Dashboards is installed when the CdeProxyService status is Complete.

To check the status of the installation:

Change to the project where you installed Cognos Dashboards:
```
oc project project-name
```
Get the status of Cognos Dashboards (cdeproxyservice-cr):
```
oc get CdeProxyService cdeproxyservice-cr -o jsonpath='{.status.cdeStatus} {"\n"}'
```
Cognos Dashboards is ready when the command returns Complete

What to do next

The service is ready to use. For details, see Visualizing data with Cognos Dashboards.