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 Replacement for Cognos 12.0.x LTS

Sue Marshall's profile image
Sue Marshall posted Tue May 20, 2025 08:41 PM

My first post to ask the group for any info and advice before on premise upgrade.   

We need to upgrade to Cognos v12.x.x from v11.2.4.  We were waiting for an LTS version and finally looked to see why it was taking so long.  Now, i see there isn't any more LTS releases and I am still figuring out what is replacing that level.  We are too small to install and test every small fix pack released.  In the past, we only installed the LTS versions for each major release level.  Not so much for whether there is support, just not to have to install every fix pack.

1)  Are there any issues going directly from Cognos v11.2.4 LTS to any particular version of Cognos 12.0.x?  We are assuming OK to keep waiting on v12.1.x since it just arrived.

2) Is there a suggested version for Cognos v12.0.x that is more "stable", if we need to install fix packs?

) Can anyone confirm if we need to install every fix pack when going forward to new versions?  I can't tell but it sounds like IBM is planning/expecting that users will need to install every fix pack for every new release level.  I am concerned because I think I heard there were some issues with missing data structiure changes if not installing Cognos v11.2.4 FP5.  

Thank you in advance!

Andrei Istomine's profile image
Andrei Istomine posted Thu May 22, 2025 11:47 AM

You should upgrade to the latest release which has required features for your org.

The difference between LTS and newer releases: new release can get new features, while LTS will get only fixes and security updates.

There are organizations which are still running C10 and happy with it :-)

Wayne Westlake's profile image
Wayne Westlake posted Fri May 23, 2025 09:11 AM

Hi Sue,

There have been similar questions from other users.  As you noted, there are no more Long Term Releases.  LTM's used to be supported for 3+ years and were considered "stable", with only minimal changes with Fixpacks addressing vulnerabilities.  While it's true that the 12.0 branch is no longer under active development, it's not considered an LTM or guaranteed to have fully tested future Interim Fixes or Fixpacks, and as even evidenced in 11.2.4, FixPack 5 made dramatic changes to PDF rendering that caused PDFs to render blank in enough cases that IBM had to issue an advisory.

 
Since everyone uses Cognos differently, with different hardware, etc, I would highly recommend not asking the community for a stable version, but rather when you decide you need to upgrade, take the latest "non developmentally active" branch, which in this case is 12.0, and latest FixPack, since those are tested more than Interim Fixes, and install on a development server.  Then test, test, test, test.  You may or may not encounter any issues but to save yourself heartache later, test as many ways as you can.  If you encounter any problems you'll need to either find work-a-rounds or open a support ticket with IBM.
 
Only when you feel confident everything good, then you can deploy to production.  And be sure to do your deployment and testing in your dev environment exactly as you plan to do in your production environment.  Installing clean vs over-the-top upgrades are not the same so your end result could be different when you go live.
 
We have been using Cognos since Decisionstream 7 back in 2006 and especially since IBM has taken over, we no longer apply fixpacks to a version we're live on, as we've been burnt too many times in the past with something they've broken.
As Andrei noted, there are still people running C10.  The problem with that scenario is eventually you won't be able to upgrade the operating system it runs on, so then you're no longer getting support from IBM, but you're no longer getting security from Microsoft, RedHat, etc.
 
Regards,
 
Wayne

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