White Paper

March 2009

IBM Cognos 8 Business

Intelligence
Two industry leaders,
one powerful result
IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence
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Abstract
Contents
In 2003 IBM® Cognos® ReportNet, a new reporting software, was introduced, built
3 Business problem on a Web services-based, service-oriented architecture that complemented IBM
The new standard: IBM Cognos 8 BI technology. For IBM Cognos ReportNet, its open, modern architecture was the
5 Business Drivers key innovation, and key to its value for both business users and IT. IBM Cognos
Business Event Management (BEM) ReportNet bridges the worlds of both pixel-perfect production reporting and
6 The Solution highly flexible business reporting. It promises and delivers a single product for all
The IBM connection reporting requirements, with simplified deployment, maintenance, and integration;
Certified drag-and-drop ease of use; multilingual reporting; and many other innovations.
The IBM technical foundation for
Business Intelligence Overview
Hardware
IBM Cognos ReportNet is phenomenally successful; it addresses the pent-up
Software
demand among customers looking for a single reporting product to meet all of their
Middleware
reporting needs. Because of this, many organizations have selected IBM Cognos
16 Conclusion ReportNet as their reporting standard.

In 2005 IBM® Cognos® 8 Business Intelligence was introduced, software that takes
the strength of the IBM Cognos ReportNet platform and delivers a single, web
services architecture for all business intelligence capabilities.

IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence offers reporting, query, and analysis;

dashboards and scorecarding; business event management; and the unifying
power of centralized metadata in one product, on a single, proven service oriented
architecture. IBM Cognos 8 BI delivers all of these capabilities through a 100
percent Web browser interface for all users.

Part of the success of this platform has been the dedicated effort to create solutions
that smoothly integrate with all technology environments. Over the past decade
IBM has worked to provide a seamless, end-to-end enterprise business intelligence
solution for joint customers.

This paper explains how integrating IBM Cognos BI software with IBM software,
hardware, and middleware provides organizations with the ability to effectively
manage performance and improve their success.
IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence
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Business problem
The new standard: IBM Cognos 8 BI A single view of all data, ease of reporting, coordinated information— IBM Cognos
8 BI can deliver all of these values for IBM customers. IBM Cognos 8 BI is a single
product delivering all BI capabilities:

Reporting
Create any type of report, for any user, with any data.

• Covers the complete range of reporting needs— managed, production, ad hoc,

personalized. Report against all operational systems, OLAP, and relational data
sources. Display reports in all desired output formats (Email, HTML, Adobe®
PDF®, Microsoft® Excel®, CSVs, and XML).

• Drag-and-drop data elements, formatting, and selection extends self-service

report authoring to users, offloads IT requirements, and reduces the reporting
backlog.

• Single, zero-footprint and adaptive authoring interface for reports and dash-
boards.

• Drill-through and drill-down automatically built-in.

• Build a report once and deploy in any language.

Analysis
Explore and analyze large volumes of data covering all dimensions of the business,
whether stored in OLAP or dimensionally aware relational sources.

• Analyze large data sets with easy-to-use, drag-and-drop user interface.

• Compare performance to see trends over time.

• Pursue business questions through analysis and exploration with fast and predict-
able response times.

• Powerful, yet easy-to-use comparative analysis. See performance outliers, such as

most and least effective suppliers, in one analysis.
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Scorecarding
Link initiatives and projects to strategy with metrics and strategy maps. Use the
same scorecard metrics to drive enterprise planning for integrated performance
management.

• Easily see and track the status of key performance indicators and initiatives.

• Understand the root cause of performance issues.

• Scorecards and metrics use the same single metadata model that drives analysis
and reporting.

• Attach reports and analysis to get the information underpinning metrics and
understand what drives the performance.

• Link metrics to owners to help drive accountability.

• Support Balanced Scorecard or other scorecarding approaches.

Dashboards
Deliver Web-based dashboards with information from different data sources in a
single visual report. Provide an at-a-glance snapshot of the business.

• Cut the time to decision with multi-object performance reports, maps, charts,
scorecards, and interactive OLAP analysis coordinated in a single view.

• Set up personalized information centers to monitor performance.

• Connect dashboard elements with underlying data for further context and analysis.

• Support various management methodologies.

IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence
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Business Drivers
Business Event Management (BEM) Business event management goes beyond the basic notification functionality
provided in other products to automate the decision-making process, launch
business processes, and integrate with Business Process Management. Where
human intervention is required, through decision-process automation, BEM notifies
the people who are accountable and provides the relevant information they need
to resolve the issue. Where human intervention is not required, it initiates business
processes such as data updates or Web service procedures to resolve the issue.
Throughout the event lifecycle, it continues to monitor and notify, ensuring that
all relevant players and systems take appropriate action at the right time.

Business event management benefits include:

• Link different parts of the organization together for enterprise-wide event

management.

• Compress the time to action and resolution.

• Define compound events and tasks using event conditions.

• Manage events in context.

• Use both decision-based and business-process issue resolution.

• Track critical events. Integration with Enterprise Planning

IBM Cognos 8 BI delivers even greater integration with IBM® Cognos® 8 Planning.
As a result, IBM customers can increase the value of their BI investment as part of
a corporate performance management initiative.

IBM Cognos 8 Planning enables top-down objective setting based on bottom-up

contributions from all parts of the enterprise. It automates the creation of
personalized plans for business units, and integrates feedback from all contributors.
The result? Your strategies are translated into specific plans that share a common
purpose and engage the company.
IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence
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The Solution
The IBM connection IBM Cognos business intelligence solutions make use of IBM® DB2® Universal
Database, IBM® DB2® Warehouse Manager, IBM® DB2® OLAP Server, IBM® DB2®
Cube Views, IBM® WebSphere® Application Server, IBM® WebSphere® Portal, IBM®
WebSphere® Information Integrator, and IBM® WebSphere® Data Integration Suite, and
is available on IBM® eServer® IBM® pSeries® and IBM® xSeries® systems (Microsoft®
Windows®, IBM® AIX®, and Linux®). Data can be accessed from all IBM eServer
platforms including IBM® iSeries®, IBM pSeries, IBM xSeries, and IBM® zSeries®.

In terms of the implementation itself, IBM Business Consulting Services (BCS)

implement integrated IBM Cognos BI and CPM solutions to numerous industry
verticals and lines of business such as sales, marketing, and human resources.
IBM BCS has a history of successfully integrating people, applications, and
data, and jointly offering customers a fast, cost-effective route to better business
decision-making.

IBM Cognos solutions are featured in IBM® PartnerWorld® for developers. This
worldwide program is designed to help software developers reach broader markets,
lower their costs of doing business, and take their products to market faster.

IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence offers your organization a solution that is:

Certified IBM® ServerProven®

IBM Cognos software is IBM ServerProven on both IBM xSeries and IBM
pSeries. IBM eServer Solution Connection is an integrated marketing initiative
that connects leading software solutions with a wide variety of valuable IBM
resources that can position customers to make better informed decisions. With IBM
ServerProven for IBM eServer certification, customers have access to special offers
that can enhance their solution implementation and lower their total solution cost
when they purchase an IBM ServerProven solution on IBM eServer.
IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence
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Linux-ready certified
IBM Cognos Reporting is compatible with Red Hat® Enterprise Linux®, having
achieved Red Hat Ready status - enabling IT decision makers to integrate reporting
functionality into their Linux applications. IBM Cognos ReportNet was developed on
the Linux platform as part of the company’s global commitment to the Linux market.

Proven
IBM Cognos solutions— along with their IBM technologies— are validated to run
quickly and reliably. In August 2003, the IBM Cognos reporting platform underwent
extensive testing at IBM’s Solution Partnership Center (SPC). It was successfully
stress-tested on IBM xSeries running Microsoft Windows and supporting IBM
middleware, using IBM DB2® Universal Database for data access. Scaling to over
190,000 named users, this testing exercise validated that the architecture for IBM
Cognos 8 BI is maximized for enterprise performance and scalability.

In addition, IBM Cognos reporting capabilities were put to the test in an IBM grid
computing environment. At the IBM Innovation Center in San Mateo, California,
IBM Cognos reporting software performed a series of complex benchmarks using
our reporting platforms, IBM DB2, and IBM WebSphere Application Server
platforms. The testing validated IBM Cognos reporting on a grid infrastructure
that spanned the two geographic locations. The test used real-world application
scenarios including user logon, logoff, portal navigation, report execution,
and report viewing. HP LoadRunner scripts generated real-world transactions
simulating 320 simultaneous users. IBM Cognos reporting performed flawlessly in
the grid computing environment.
IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence
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Innovative
Another example of this partnership is the decision to embed strategic IBM
middleware into a special edition of IBM Cognos 8 BI. IBM® Cognos® 8 BI Special
Edition comes with the Express versions of IBM WebSphere as its Application
Server, IBM DB2 UDB as content store for reporting, and IBM® HTTP Server® for
the Web server. Based on open standards, such as SQL, Java®, XML, SOAP, and
WSDL, and built to leverage existing enterprise infrastructure investments including
relational databases and Web application servers, IBM Cognos 8 BI is available with
these components bundled into the IBM Cognos 8 BI Special Edition. This gives
customers choice and flexibility as they design and deploy their enterprise reporting
environment. In addition, this combined solution reduces overall deployment costs,
because no additional database, application server, or Web server is required for the
running of the IBM Cognos BI solution.

The IBM technical foundation for The foundation of IBM Cognos software— the underlying back end of the
Business Intelligence IBM Cognos solution— is made of leading middleware, hardware, and software
technologies from IBM. These include Web infrastructure technologies such
as IBM WebSphere, the IBM DB2 UDB database for the data warehouse, and
enterprise operating systems such as IBM AIX. Together, they make up IBM’s
world-class, BI-enabled, enterprise platform.

IBM has conducted extensive testing at IBM Cognos labs to ensure its products
exceed the expectations of IBM users. It backs up this testing with thousands of
real-life implementations.
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IBM Cognos software supports the following IBM products:

IBM Information management

• DB2 UDB (Windows; Linux)

• DB2 UDB on pSeries (AIX; Linux)

• DB2 UDB for iSeries (OS/400)

• DB2 UDB for z/OS and OS/390

• DB2 Cube Views

• DB2 OLAP Server

• DB2 Intelligent Miner

• IBM® Informix® Dynamic Server

• IBM® Red Brick® Warehouse

IBM WebSphere
• WebSphere Application Server

• WebSphere Portal

• WebSphere Information Integrator

• WebSphere Data Integration Suite (Ascential)

IBM® Lotus®
• IBM Workplace

IBM® Tivoli®
• Tivoli Access Manager

• Tivoli Decision Support

• Tivoli Data Warehouse

IBM eServer
• IBM xSeries - Windows; Linux

• IBM pSeries - AIX; Linux

IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence
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The following section explains how IBM Cognos products support, access, and
utilize IBM technologies.

Hardware The IBM server family provides a balanced, highly secure foundation for
dynamically managing critical applications. It features a broad range of capabilities
for integrating your business, consolidating infrastructure, improving efficiencies,
and lowering costs. These server components provide an efficient automated
“Linux on POWER in platform and an ideal foundation for building business intelligence solutions with
conjunction with the IBM Cognos software.
mission-critical, user-
IBM Cognos BI runs on IBM xSeries and IBM pSeries, and supports data access to
friendly performance of IBM
IBM DB2 UDB and IBM DB2 OLAP on IBM xSeries, IBM pSeries, IBM iSeries,
Cognos software not only and IBM zSeries. In addition, a customer that has both IBM xSeries and IBM
delivers a key competitive pSeries servers available can have different IBM Cognos components running on
advantage, but also a any combination of these servers. This provides the flexibility to add additional
time-to-value to our joint computing power on demand.

customers. IBM is laying

In accordance with the IBM Linux on POWER initiative, IBM Cognos 8 BI
the successful foundation to supports the Red Hat Linux operating system. IBM Cognos 8 BI support for Linux
assist customers to achieve on IBM hardware greatly influences the total cost of ownership equation. With IBM
the vision of delivering Cognos 8 BI on IBM pSeries Linux, organizations no longer need to sacrifice price
information on demand.” for performance. Organizations are turning to the Linux operating system for cost
savings. Typically, these saving occur due to the lower cost of the hardware and
Gary Schneider
Director of Linux Business Development
software, or from the ability to consolidate servers. Organizations deploying IBM
IBM Information Management. Cognos solutions on Linux will realize these benefits.
IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence
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Software The IBM DB2 Framework for BI is focused on the infrastructure layer — preserving
and reinforcing customers’ investment in IBM Cognos tools, skills, and practices. IBM
Cognos software embraces IBM’s standards, architecture, and technologies, extending
the IBM value proposition with best-of-breed business intelligence software.

The framework:

• Uses open standards such as SQL and XML as the sole BI interface to IBM DB2.

• Integrates federated access to distributed disparate data sources, Web services

access to BI functions, and operational systems with real time warehouses.

• Presents a single version of the truth across enterprise data topology through
integrated OLAP.

IBM Cognos BI software delivers operational and management reports, explorable

analysis, ad hoc queries, rich data visualizations, and event-driven business
intelligence via email to any user across the organization, anywhere, using IBM
DB2 UDB or IBM® Informix® as the source for data.

IBM DB2 Cube Views

IBM DB2 Cube Views create a unique dimensional platform that allows BI tools
to connect easier, deploy faster, and perform better. IBM’s DB2 UDB with IBM
DB2 Cube Views is uniquely aware of business intelligence data requirements,
and integrates easily with data structures for BI to present an integrated view. The
database uses this understanding to improve performance of all BI access to the
database. This solution:

• Improves reporting and analysis performance, creating enterprise-wide user

acceptance and easier large-scale deployment.

• Creates a seamless and centralized business intelligence platform when paired

with IBM Cognos software, providing an end-to-end architecture.
IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence
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IBM® DB2® Intelligent Miner

Data mining technologies have advanced so that even novice users can use
algorithms and create meaningful, sophisticated output. IBM DB2 Intelligent Miner
places sophisticated data mining capabilities inside the database where IBM Cognos
8 BI can leverage its capabilities. Whether using a user-defined function (UDF) that
contains data mining logic such as predictive model markup language (PMML), or
using a database table populated with the results of a data mining exercise, IBM
Cognos software provides sophisticated analysis capabilities.

For example, you can create a user-defined “customer life-time profitability”

function. Advanced heuristics let you analyze volumes of data, and even a novice
user of IBM Cognos 8 BI can use it with no training. A user can also query an
IBM DB2 table that is populated with PMML output. You can create and deliver
additional analysis and meaningful output from the base data and the mined data.

IBM Red Brick Warehouse

IBM Red Brick Warehouse meets specialized database server requirements for
business-critical, high-demand data analysis. IBM Cognos BI delivers reporting,
analysis, querying, scorecarding, and event-driven business intelligence via email to
any user across the organization anywhere, with IBM Red Brick Warehouse as the
source for data.

IBM Tivoli
IBM Tivoli manages the IBM Cognos 8 BI workload and implementation to ensure
that all services are operational and that system uptime is maximized. In addition,
IBM Tivoli can monitor all IBM Cognos 8 BI services and enable new services
based on current load information. For example, during month-end reporting, if
IBM Tivoli notices that there is a peak usage of the base reporting service, IBM
Tivoli can create new reporting services on demand. This helps ensure that users
are getting the level of service they expect from IBM Cognos 8 BI.
IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence
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IBM Tivoli Access Manager

Using IBM Tivoli Directory Server (LDAP repository) IBM Cognos 8 BI can
leverage your existing security and can reinforce the value of IBM Tivoli as the
single source of security-based information.

Middleware To deliver consistent information, IT must remove the barriers to integrated

architecture with a framework that supports interoperability between
heterogeneous environments. The combination of IBM Cognos business
intelligence software and IBM’s WebSphere Information Integrator provides
companies with access to all of the enterprise data needed to deliver corporate
performance management (CPM).

IBM WebSphere Information Integrator

IBM WebSphere Information Integrator gives companies real-time access to a wide
range of enterprise information. It offers a range of integration technologies such as
enterprise search, data, and content federation, data transformation, data placement
(including replication and caching), and event publishing. Business-critical
information is often distributed across various sources and operating platforms
including databases (relational and mainframe), XML files, content repositories,
and workflow systems.

IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence

IBM Cognos 8 BI runs on top of the IBM infrastructure to provide seamless reporting, analysis, dashboards,
scorecarding, and business event management capabilities
IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence
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IBM WebSphere Information Integrator lets applications access diverse and

distributed enterprise data as if it were a single source, making it easier to work
with disparate data and content, while enhancing a user’s execution of IBM Cognos
8 Business Intelligence capabilities. Additional functionality and data access is
available through other IBM WebSphere Information Integrator offerings.

IBM WebSphere Information Integrator Classic Federation

IBM WebSphere Information Integrator Classic Federation for IBM® z/OS® extends
IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence for access to mainframe data sources including
VSAM, IMS, CA-IDMS, CA-Datacom, Software AG Adabas, and IBM DB2 Universal
Database on the z/OS platform. With this solution, you can access mainframe data
without mainframe programming or legacy database skills. IBM Cognos 8 BI and
IBM WebSphere Information Integration Classic Federation enable companies to
quickly integrate legacy data sources with business intelligence applications.

IBM WebSphere Information Integrator Event Publisher products

The IBM WebSphere Information Integrator Event Publisher family of products
accelerates data warehousing and business integration by making it easy to link data
events with business processes. Changed data items can be used by an application,
tool, or message broker to drive additional processing such as data replication,
application-to-application communication, workflow initiation, and data population.

IBM WebSphere Information Integrator Content Edition

By providing a consistent, bi-directional interface to disparate content sources, IBM
WebSphere Information Integrator Content Edition allows organizations to quickly
integrate IBM Cognos 8 BI and other business applications with disparate content
repositories that store documents, images, reports, digital assets, e-mail, and other
important business content. This allows users to access and work with distributed
content as if it were stored and managed in a single repository, further extending
the capabilities of IBM Cognos 8 BI.
IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence
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IBM WebSphere portal

IBM Cognos 8 BI leverages the IBM WebSphere Portal that offers a customizable,
uniform, and consolidated view of a user’s working environment. IBM Cognos 8 BI
is seamlessly integrated into your IBM WebSphere Portal environment providing
capabilities such as single sign-on, and view, search and navigation capabilities of all
related IBM Cognos content. In addition, the open Web services architecture of IBM
Cognos 8 BI is fully exposed through the IBM Cognos 8 BI SDK. Custom developed
IBM WebSphere portlets can be deployed to meet a company’s specific needs.

IBM WebSphere Application Server

IBM Cognos 8 BI leverages the IBM WebSphere Application Server that is a
Java J2EE–compliant, high-performance, scalable, and manageable middleware
transaction engine.

As companies strive to decrease their costs and the complexity of their reporting
environment, IT managers have been looking for a single, Web-based BI solution
that can address all of their organization’s BI requirements. They require a flexible
solution that leverages existing IT infrastructure, is truly scalable, and has the
ability to grow. IBM Cognos 8 BI is that solution, covering all BI needs with one
product and one architecture. Coupled with IBM’s Information Management,
IBM WebSphere, and server components, your organization will have the right
foundation for taking enterprise business intelligence to the next level
of performance.
IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence
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Conclusion
A BI solution must be able to access all data, provide all BI capabilities, and be
appropriate for all users. IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence is that solution,
driving adoption by over 80 percent of the Fortune 500. The flexibility and
functionality of IBM Cognos software has also resulted in a steady increase of IBM
users selecting IBM Cognos solutions as their BI standard. IBM Cognos 8 BI offers
IBM customers considerable value.

Deliver all BI capabilities from a single product

• Single product and architecture with all BI capabilities: Reporting, analysis,

scorecards, dashboards, business event management, as well as data integration.

• Simplified maintenance: Zero-footprint, browser-based deployment and adminis-

tration. No duplication among BI capabilities.

• Increase BI adoption: One product meets the needs of your entire user base,
from casual users to power users.

• Proven integration: Web services architecture simplifies deployment and adminis-

tration. Single, open API lets you integrate with existing security, portals, and IT
infrastructure. No single point of failure.

Serve all users with BI that matches their needs

• BI consumers: Deliver pixel-perfect reports to their desktops with secure

Web portal access adaptable to mobile devices.
• Senior executives: Deliver scorecarding, dashboards, and reports for quick
communication of complex data.

• Business managers: Deliver all BI capabilities, with drag-and-drop simplicity

and the same zero-footprint interface.

• Professional authors/analysts: Deliver advanced features such as high-volume

burst reports for distribution, the full range of report elements and output types,
and reporting and analysis against relational or multidimensional sources.

• IT administrators: Deliver a zero-footprint, browser-based environment, modular

deployment, consistent metadata, and access to all corporate data on a Web
services architecture.
IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence
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Leverage all corporate data

• Open data strategy and common metadata: Common business rules, calculations,
and filters consolidate your heterogeneous data into a consistent business view.

• Direct access: Leverage the information directly from existing sources including
relational, OLAP, and other multidimensional sources.

• Enterprise Information Integration (EII): Access multiple disparate data sources

in batch, historic, or real time. Use the built-in EII capability or third-party inte-
gration technologies.

• Extract, transform, load (ETL) processes: Integrate, cleanse, transform, and

aggregate data for a consolidated historical view. A dimensional framework
provides information formatted in the way business users think and optimized for
all BI capabilities.
 © Copyright IBM Corporation 2009

IBM Canada
3755 Riverside Drive
Ottawa, ON, Canada K1G 4K9

Produced in Canada
March 2009
About IBM Cognos BI and Performance Management All Rights Reserved.

IBM, the IBM logo and ibm.com are

IBM Cognos business intelligence (BI) and performance management solutions trademarks or registered trademarks of
International Business Machines Corporation
deliver world-leading enterprise planning, consolidation and BI software, support and
in the United States, other countries, or both.
services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational If these and other IBM trademarked terms
are marked on their first occurrence in this
performance. IBM Cognos solutions bring together technology, analytical applications,
information with a trademark symbol (® or ™),
best practices, and a broad network of partners to give customers an open, adaptive these symbols indicate U.S. registered or
common law trademarks owned by IBM at
and complete performance solution. Over 23,000 customers in more than 135
the time this information was published. Such
countries around the world choose IBM Cognos solutions. trademarks may also be registered or common
law trademarks in other countries. A current
list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web
For further information or to reach a representative: www.ibm.com/cognos at “Copyright and trademark information” at
www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml.

Request a call Adobe, the Adobe logo, PostScript, and

the PostScript logo are either registered
trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems
To request a call or to ask a question, go to www.ibm.com/cognos/contactus. Incorporated in the United States, and/or other
An IBM Cognos representative will respond to your enquiry within two business days. countries.

Java and all Java-based trademarks and logos

are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in
the United States, other countries, or both.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus

Torvalds in the United States, other countries,
or both.

Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, and the

Windows logo are trademarks of Microsoft
Corporation in the United States, other
countries, or both.

UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open

Group in the United States and other countries.

Other company, product, or service names

may be trademarks or service marks of others.

References in this publication to IBM products

or services do not imply that IBM intends to
make them available in all countries in which
IBM operates.

Any reference in this information to non-IBM

Web sites are provided for convenience
only and do not in any manner serve as an
endorsement of those Web sites. The materials
at those Web sites are not part of the materials
for this IBM product and use of those Web sites
is at your own risk.

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