Automated Testing for Cognos

Maintaining accuracy and consistency of BI content is critical to the performance and reliability of Cognos implementations. An automated testing system, like MotioCI™, ensures superior performing Cognos environments by detecting issues early in the development cycle which provide the following benefits:

• Diagnose of problems faster
• Increase BI team momentum by eliminating manual testing
• Reduce development costs

MotioCI is in a class of its own when it comes to testing capabilities for BI content. MotioCI has the most extensive features available for Cognos testing.

Regression Testing for Executable and Non-executable Content

Regression testing refers to automated tests performed on Cognos to identify problems early in the BI development cycle. MotioCI's regression tests can be configured for all executable Cognos content, such as:

• active reports
• queries
• analyses
• reports

MotioCI extends its regression testing capabilities to non-executable Cognos content, such as:

• packages
• data sources
• dispatchers
• folders

MotioCI's comprehensive content testing provides the most reliable approach to validating Cognos content in the development cycle.

Unlimited Regression Test Scenarios

An expansive feature called “Assertion Studio”, gives Cognos users the power to create any assertion or test used to validate Cognos content. Assertions allow you to verify a particular condition about a Cognos object or test for accuracy and performance; for example you can confirm your dispatchers have consistent settings or compare report outputs to the result of SQL. Within Assertion Studio, Cognos users are able to customize any of the many existing assertion types that come with MotioCI as well as author their own assertions. The possibilities of testing scenarios are endless and easy to create within the Assertion Studio feature.

Regression Testing for Output Formats

	You can also create regression tests for BI outputs, including SQL, HTML, CSV, XML, etc. Additionally, you can compare outputs to other outputs residing on different Cognos instances, which is useful for comparing Cognos object performance between environments. Output testing is also very useful for identifying things that can affect performance such as:
	Verifying SQL output doesn't contain outer joins Confirming the output size remains within a specified range of its initial value, etc.

Stress Testing for Cognos

	In addition to regression testing, MotioCI provides stress testing for Cognos. Stress testing is imperative to safeguard your Cognos BI implementation against varying usage scenarios that may affect performance. You can simulate stress tests on Cognos instances to determine how much load an environment can handle and identify critical breaking points brought on by the increased load. Examples of stress test scenarios include:
	Adding additional simulated users Simulating Cognos user interactivity with report outputs Increasing report execution frequency
	Stress testing is a trustworthy approach to determining how your Cognos implementation behaves under existing performance requirements or SLAs (service level agreements) as well as predicting its stability under heavy usage conditions that may occur.

Continuous Verification of Cognos Content

The MotioCI continuous integration capabilities allow customers to automatically apply all configured tests at regular intervals (e.g. "run all tests every 2 hours"). The concept of Continuous Integration enables MotioCI to reduce the time and costs associated with BI development by proactively monitoring IBM Cognos environments and notifying project stakeholders when a problem surfaces rather than relying on the end users to discover it.