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Empowering a Food and Beverage Manufacturer to Secure and Modernize Their Cognos Environment

Group of diverse coworkers collaborating on project at modern office workspace. Smiling colleagues discussing ideas at work, taking notes and using laptop computer during productive business meeting
Group of diverse coworkers collaborating on project at modern office workspace. Smiling colleagues discussing ideas at work, taking notes and using laptop computer during productive business meeting
by Micro Strategies
2 MIN READ

Challenge

A leading food and beverage manufacturer and distributor faced mounting challenges within their legacy Cognos environment. The tipping point came when the organization’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) conducted a comprehensive infrastructure review and flagged the Cognos platform as a critical area of concern. The environment had not been properly maintained, leading to significant security vulnerabilities that posed a direct risk to the business. 

However, decommissioning the system was not an option. The platform played an essential role in day-to-day operations and decision-making across the enterprise. This created a complex situation: the client was grappling with a system that was both business-critical and increasingly insecure. 

Beyond the immediate security risks, the company was also struggling with inefficient license management, performance degradation, and a lack of momentum toward modern BI capabilities. These issues were consuming valuable IT resources and preventing the organization from realizing the full potential of self-service analytics and AI-driven insights.

Solution:

To address these urgent and strategic issues, the client partnered with our team to conduct a comprehensive assessment and modernization of their Cognos ecosystem. The solution involved four critical areas: 

  • Environment & Security Assessment: We initiated the engagement with a complete evaluation of the client’s Cognos environment, leveraging expert resources and proprietary diagnostic tools. This discovery process uncovered critical points of failure, underutilized assets, and—most importantly—several security vulnerabilities that posed substantial risk. Addressing these issues became the top priority. 
  • Security-First Remediation: Based on the findings, our first priority was to close security gaps and stabilize the infrastructure. We provisioned new servers, addressed vulnerabilities, and upgraded the platform to a secure, compliant version—significantly reducing risk and restoring confidence in the system’s integrity. 
  • License & User Alignment: We analyzed usage patterns and discovered significant discrepancies between license allocations and actual user activity. This enabled us to eliminate excess costs and reduce compliance exposure by aligning licensing with real-world needs. 
  • Strategic Modernization Roadmap: With a secure and stable foundation in place, we developed a phased modernization roadmap. In the short term, we upgraded the Cognos environment to deliver immediate value and demonstrate the enhanced capabilities to end users. In the long term, we’re guiding the client’s migration to a cloud-based platform. This transition will simplify maintenance, ensure continuous security updates, and unlock scalable self-service analytics and AI integration—without increasing IT overhead. 

Results:

By collaborating with Micro Strategies, the client not only resolved immediate infrastructure and security concerns but also positioned itself for long-term success. Key outcomes included: 

  • Strengthened data security and compliance posture by proactively addressing critical system vulnerabilities. 
  • Enhanced system reliability and performance through targeted infrastructure upgrades. 
  • Reduced overhead and licensing costs through refined user and license alignment. 
  • Positioned the organization to adopt self-service BI and AI-driven analytics, accelerating time-to-insight and strategic decision-making. 

The food and beverage company is now entering the next phase of its analytics journey— migrating to the cloud to further reduce operational complexity, stay continuously up to date with the latest version of Cognos while reducing security risks, and enable smarter, faster decision-making across the enterprise. 

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