Services

This chapter describes the Web services defined by IBM® Cognos®. The IBM Cognos architecture includes a number of services for interacting with and managing runnable objects. Services exist for each of the major components of the product. Each of the services listed in this chapter communicates using the BI Bus API.

Each service shares a set of generic methods for running objects associated with the service. Users send requests directly to the appropriate service, based on the class of the object. For example, requests to run reports can be sent to the report service or the batch report service. Requests to move objects are sent to the Content Manager.

To support this architecture, services execute tasks using a generalized asynchronous protocol. The protocol uses a consistent mechanism for passing parameters to standardize how tasks are executed. Classes and methods exist to support this consistent process of executing tasks. Asynchronous conversations are managed to optimize overall performance. For more information about asynchronous conversations and runnable objects, see Running tasks.

A single, generic bibus » history class structure is shared by background tasks to record significant events during execution.

The various options specified to run tasks are also unified under a single bibus » option class hierarchy.