When trying to connect Cognos to your SQL Server, you may see an error like the following:

SQL Server did not return a response. The connection has been closed.

If your SQL Server is configured to communicate only via TLS 1.2, you will see connection errors until you take a few additional steps to configure Cognos to support only TLS 1.2. 

Solution

The following steps can be taken to configure Cognos to communicate only via TLS 1.2.

1. Download and install the Unrestricted SDK JCE policy files, which can be obtained from IBM’s website.
   

   NOTE: You will be required to create an IBM login to download these files.

2. Once downloaded, the files must be extracted to the Cognos installation location. By default, this location is: C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\analytics\jre\lib\security
   
   
3. Add the SHA256 cipher suites in the IBM Cognos Configuration utility. In the IBM Cognos Configuration utility, go to Security > Cryptography. Then select SSL Protocols to edit and set this to TLS 1.2, as seen in the image below.
   
   
   
   Then go to Security > Cryptography > Cognos, select Supported ciphersuites to edit, and add all the ciphersuites with SHA256.
   
4. Close the IBM Cognos Configuration utility.
   
   
5. Open the bin64 folder under the Cognos installation directory. By default the location is: C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\analytics\bin64
   
   
6. Locate startwlp.bat. and open this in a text editor. Then, find the following line:
   set JVM_ARGS=-Xmx4096m -XX:MaxNewSize=2048m -XX:NewSize=1024m %DEBUG_OPTS%
   
   
7. After this line, add the following:
   
   set JVM_ARGS="-Dcom.ibm.jsse2.overrideDefaultTLS=true" %JVM_ARGS%
   
   
8. Save and close the file.
   
   
9. Locate bootstrap_wlp_os_version.xml. Open this in a text editor and find the following line: <param condName="${java_vendor}" condValue="IBM">-Xscmaxaot4m</param>
   
   
10. After this line, add the following:
    
    <param>"-Dcom.ibm.jsse2.overrideDefaultTLS=true"</param>
    
    
11. Save and close the file.
    
    
12. Locate cogconfig.bat. Open this in a text editor and find the following line:
    set J_OPTS=%DD_OPTS% %J_OPTS%
    
    
13. After this line, add the following:
    
    set J_OPTS="-Dcom.ibm.jsse2.overrideDefaultTLS=true" %J_OPTS%
    
    
14. Save and close the file.
    
    
15. Start the IBM Cognos Configuration utility using the cogconfig.bat you modified in the previous step. 

IMPORTANT: You must start IBM Cognos Configuration using cogconfig.bat.

16. In the IBM Cognos Configuration utility, go to Data Access > Content Manager > Content Store.
    
    
17. Right-click on Content Store and choose Test. This should now be successful.

After these steps, the test connection should be successful, and the Cognos services can be started. FlexNet Manager Suite Analytics should now be accessible.

If you do not see any of the data in the reports or widgets loading, you may need to take additional steps to set a JVM argument for the QueryService to use TLS. The IBM article below details these settings. If you do not see these settings in the Admin Console, please open a support case for Flexera support to assist with getting access to these settings.  

For more information on this issue, refer to the following IBM article: Connection to SQL Server fails when the server is configured to use TLS 1.2 or connecting to SQL Server 2016.