In the first post in this series, http://blogs.perkinsconsulting.com/post/Managing-IBM-Cognos-Transformer-Using-MDL-Part-1.aspx, I described what I consider the optimum configuration for working with IBM Cognos Transformer using the MDL language.  In this post, I’ll talk about one of my favorite uses for MDL – creating a library of reusable model component “building blocks”.

Note:  For the purposes of this post, I’m using IBM Cognos series 7 with delimited text file data sources.   I’m also using the recommended model design protocol - “structural” queries to define the dimensions and “transactional” queries to define the measures and numerical accumulations. 

In our standard data mart development, we use the Kimball model of a constellation of dimensions surrounding a fact – the “star schema”.  Since we always try to deploy conformed dimensions, any given dimension may relate to multiple facts, yet the structure of the dimension and its internal hierarchies remain constant across the reporting environment.  This being the case, it’s really annoying to have to define the same dimensions in every Transformer model you create.  Furthermore, if your company has more than one Transformer designer, it might be possible (even with the best data mart design) for individual designers to configure their Transformer model differently, albeit inadvertently, and consequently introduce inconsistencies across reports.

MDL to the rescue!

Using MDL, you can develop a centrally maintained library of model object definitions which can then be agglomerated into a new model (also using MDL).  This is particularly effective with dimensions.  Measures, since they are dependent on the “transactional” or fact data sources are likely to vary more than dimensions.  This doesn’t mean you can’t make a measure building block – just that it might not be as universal as a dimension.

In order for this methodology to be effective, the Transformer object (we’ll refer to this object as a “dimension” from now on) should have a discrete data source, preferably that describes the single dimension only.  Each building block will contain the dimension and its data source – but nothing else.

As I mentioned in the first post in the series, it’s possible to create your MDL model file completely from scratch by typing commands into a text editor, but I have better things to do with my time.  Instead, I prefer to take an existing model with which I’m satisfied and break it apart into component blocks.

Make sure VerbOutput is set to 1 and ObjectIDOutput is set to 0 in your configuration file, as outlined in the first series post.

1. Open the source model with the Transformer UI.
2. Save the model as another name (say, for the dimension MDL file you’re creating), being sure to use the .mdl file type.
3. Remove all the dimensions except the one you’re creating.
4. Remove all the data sources except the ones that support the dimension you’re creating
5. Since you’re creating a generic template for the dimension, you don’t want to store any existing category values, so perform a Clean House on the model to remove all category values.
6. Save the model.
7. Open the model using a text editor (not Transformer).
8. Remove the “New Model” node at the top of the file. (Note: Be sure and do this each time you save your template from Transformer, since the New Model node will start a new model definition each time it’s encountered).
9. Save the file again. You now have a dimension template.

 

Even though you don’t want the “NewModel” command in all your dimension templates, in order to put together a new model using MDL, you have to have at least one “NewModel” command in the MDL code.  So, we’re going to make a “New Model” template that’s nothing but a NewModel command node.

1. Create a new model in Transformer (don’t put anything in it).
2. Save it as “NewModelTemplate.mdl” or some similar exciting name.

This is your template for new models.

Okay, now for the fun part.  We’re going to put our building blocks together to create a new model.

In addition to the item_dimension and NewModelTemplate, I’ve also got a date_dimension template.  To pull all these together, I’m going to write a small MDL code file.

1. Open a text editor such as Notepad.
2. The first line of the code file should reference the new model template, using the MDL command “OpenMDL”.
3. On each succeeding line, specify another MDL template to open using OpenMDL. Transformer treats each successive file cumulatively, so it will add any code it finds in each subsequent file to the code it’s already read.
4. Save the file with the .mdl file extension.
5. Open the file with the Transformer UI.

Transformer combines all the code in the template files to create a new model using all the building blocks you specified.  Pretty nifty, eh?

For more information on the MDL language itself, check out the documentation that ships with Transformer.  The Transformer MDL Reference guide is pretty well hidden in versions prior to series 8:

In series 8, it’s one of the selections on the Transformer Documentation page and consequently a little easier to find, although it’s now called the Transformer Developer Guide.

 

I started working with IBM Cognos Transformer (the tool that builds multi-dimensional cubes) back in the day – the version 6.0 day, as a matter of fact, before the advent of SQL Server Analysis Services.  I believe that at that time, the binary model files had a file extension of .pyg, and the only way I knew to manipulate the model was inside the Transformer UI.

Ah, the innocent days of (relative) youth.

Well, innocent and really annoying, too.  I’ve always had issues with programs that were only accessible one way.  I like knowing about back doors and troubleshooting methods to invoke when the compiled UI lets you down or corrupts your files. 

Then Cognos released an update to Transformer that changed the file extension from .pyg to .pyh and I discovered the .mdl file format.

When you save your model in the .mdl format, it’s stored in MDL, the proprietary text-based modeling language that is the “universal translator” between versions of Transformer. 

In those early days, other than just using the .mdl file format as a conversion function, I also used it to compress model files.  The binary .py? files never release any space, since they store information about changes to the model.  Consequently, they continue to grow forever.  The only way to wrangle them back into a manageable size is to save them as .mdl files.  When you save the .mdl file back to .py? format, all that unseen space is removed and the binary file is restored to a reasonable size.

After a while, I wondered…why bother to go back to a .py? file anyway?  The only thing you really gain using the .py? file is a slight advantage in load time.  You can do anything with the .mdl formatted model that you can with a .py? file.  And I discovered that you could do even more. 

In addition to just being able to open and edit the model file in a text editor (a huge bonus for me, see reference to back doors above), you can actually use the MDL language to alter, manipulate and create all or part of a Transformer model.  Granted, creating an entire model from scratch using MDL would not be my idea of a good time, but luckily this is not an all-or-nothing proposition. 

My two favorite uses for MDL are using it to create model “building blocks” (reusable model components that can be standardized and used across multiple models), and using MDL to automate model maintenance and cube builds. 

In this series of blog posts, I’ll cover both these scenarios, but first, we need to do a little housekeeping. 

There are two types of MDL – Structured MDL and Verb MDL.  Structured MDL was the original version, but it’s more restrictive – you have to pay attention to the order of the commands in the file, for instance.  Verb MDL is easier to work with.  However, the default setting for the MDL version for Transformer out-of-the-box is Structured MDL, so we need to change a couple of settings in trnsfrmr.ini (for pre-series 8 Transformer) or cogtr.xml (for series 8).

The VerbOutput setting toggles between Structured MDL and Verb MDL.  VerbOutput = 0 sets Transformer to Structured MDL mode.  VerbOutput = 1 sets Transformer to Verb MDL mode.  The second setting (ObjectIDOutput) affects the way object values are presented in the MDL text file.  ObjectIDOutput = 1 presents the object identifiers as numeric values, which are not easy to evaluate in a human-readable way.  ObjectIDOutput = 0 presents the object identifiers using their text value, which is much easier on the eye (and brain).

• Series 7
  • Open …cer[2,3 or 4]/bin/trnsfrmr.ini
  • In the [PowerPlay Transformer] section, set the VerbOutput option to 1
  • In the same section, set the ObjectIDOutput option to 0

• Series 6.*
  • Open …cer1/bin/trnsfrmr.ini
  • At the end of the [PowerPlay Transformer] section, add a line and type in VerbOutput=1
  • Add another line and type in ObjectIDOutput=0
• Series 8
  • Open …cognos/c8/configuration/cogtr.xml
  • Add the following node under the <Section Name="Transformer"> node:: <Preference Name="VerbOutput" Value="1"/>
  • Add the following node under the <Section Name="Transformer"> node: <Preference Name="ObjectIDOutput" Value="0" />

The following examples show the same Transformer MDL model category definitions.  First, as Structured MDL (ObjectIDOutput is the default of 1):

Next, Verb MDL with ObjectIDOutput = 1:

Next, Verb MDL with ObjectIDOutput = 0:

As you can see, setting the ObjectIDOutput to 0 presents the .mdl file in a much friendlier way.  After you set your VerbOutput and ObjectIDOutput configuration options, open one of your models from the Transformer UI, then use the Save As option to save the model as an .mdl file with the new configuration options applied.  You can then open the .mdl file in your favorite text editor for your viewing pleasure.

I’m posting this in case someone else comes across this strange bug.

I recently had a Silverlight project start displaying a vertical scrollbar in the window in IE8.

It turns out I had ‘formatted’ the page that hosts the Silverlight object control and that since the div element was on a separate line from the iframe element, it was causing the scrollbar to appear.

 

I tried playing around with the CSS since I don’t think it should matter how I have the angle brackets in the page but I finally gave up and just put it back the way it was.  This still feels dirty to me.

So if you are having similar issues.  Here’s at least one solution.

One of the most valuable uses of good business information is to help navigate a business in times of uncertainty and change. Many of our clients are doing exactly that and seeing huge benefits from having a data mart of solid, reliable and up to date information about their business performance.

A little while ago I had lunch with one of our Retail clients and they provided a great example. Their bank had been hit hard by the financial services crash and decided that over a period of months they would scale back our client’s line of credit for working capital. Rather than panicking our client went back to a new multi-dimensional analysis that they’d been using to analyze their inventory levels. They realized they could more closely manage inventory now that they had more accurate and timely seasonal sales information. Over a period of about nine months they reduced their inventory levels and working capital by almost 50% and were able to easily accommodate a smaller line of credit. In fact, they are seeing other operational benefits from not storing and managing so much inventory. Since their customer’s economic situation has also been dramatically changed they are buying different products. Having less on-hand inventory has kept our client better positioned to respond to these product buying shifts and able to move quickly into new higher-margin products rather than having to heavily discount large inventories of older products.

Having good business information delivered in a means that facilitates analysis allows our clients to see leading indicators of change well in advance. It also allows them to explore multiple possible solutions and anticipate how these solutions will impact their business. These are essential capabilities in these times of economic change!

Recently, I inadvertently discovered a useful feature of Windows 7 Virtual PC that I'd like to share, just in case there are folks out there who haven't experienced this particular functionality.

On my host laptop (a Windows 7 box), I've installed SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008, although my previous XP box hosted SQL Server/Visual Studio 2005. I use Visio for Enterprise Architects as my data modeling tool and as I discovered during the move to the new Windows 7 laptop, Visio for Enterprise Architects requires Visual Studio 2005 in order to install properly - it won't play with VS2008.

Okay, fine.

This was annoying, but not catastrophic. Since most of our clients are still on SQL Server 2005, I have a Virtual PC with SQL Server/Visual Studio 2005 installed. I installed Visio on this VPC, grumbling since I knew I'd have to launch this VPC whenever I wanted to do any data modeling.

Or so I thought.

One day, I experienced a momentary lapse of consciousness and double-clicked a Visio (.vsd) file on my host machine. Just as I was cursing myself for doing something so dopey, the Virtual PC credentials login for my SQL Server/VS2005 VPC popped up. I entered my credentials, and the VPC started to launch, except instead of opening the VPC window, it launched Visio as a "virtual application" within the context of the host machine.

How cool is that?

I was able to access files from inside the VPC as well as the host machine from the Visio application menus.  The host machine treated it as a remote connection to the VPC through the local network.

I've poked around with this a little more since the first time it surprised me and have discovered a few more things:

• My VPC is a member of a domain.  If no network is available (even a network that is not the domain network), the remote application cannot launch.  For instance, I was in an airport recently with no internet/network connectivity and was unable to start the virtual application.
• For this domain-enabled VPC, it doesn’t seem to matter if Integration Features are enabled or not.  The remote application can still launch.
• Occasionally, Internet Explorer tries to take over and pretend that it’s the application of choice to host .vsd file.  You have to take a firm stand on this – right click the .vsd file and choose Open With.  On my host laptop, the option to open with the remote Visio program appears in the popup menu (SQLServer2005 is the name of my VPC):

I haven’t tried this with a VPC that isn’t a member of a domain, so I’m not sure what the behavior for that would be like.  I’ll have to give that a try for the next blog post!

One of the helpful features of Team Foundation Server (TFS) is the ability to associate work items with the code that was changed or created for them during the check in process.  In the event that you forget to make this association during code check in, TFS allows you to link a code changeset to a work item after the fact.

 

After opening the work item you want to associate with a changeset, select the Links tab and click on the Add button.

 

Changeset is one of the options you can select in the Link type drop down box.

After you select Changeset, click on the Browse button to the right of Changeset text box inside Link details.  

 

 

TFS gives you a few different ways to locate the changeset you want to associate with a work item, including a specific file contained within the changeset, the user who checked the code in, the changeset number, and a date/time range.  

After you click Find, TFS presents you with a list of changesets meeting your criteria.  If you would like to review the files in a changeset before clicking OK, there is a Details button at the bottom left of the dialog box that will retrieve a list of the files in the changeset.

In Part 1 of this post we described a dilemma in reporting environments where report developers need to do complex date calculations. These frequently involve relative dates – periods that are relative to the current date such as the last 13 months or the currently closed financial periods.

The most common approaches we see to these issues are:

1. Add more prompting to the report so that the user has the burden of defining what the last x months are or what financial periods are closed. In addition to being a burden this is subject to misinterpretation. For example, what if the person executing the report doesn’t know what financial periods are closed? Do they guess?
2. Put complicated date functions and logic into each report. This usually performs badly – often the logic cannot be evaluated completely within the database engine and requires moving large amounts of data between the database server and the IBM Cognos application server. It also runs the risk that different report developers will use slightly different sets of complicated date functions to achieve what they believe are the same thing. For example, one developer may calculate how many working days (not Saturday, Sunday or Holidays) have elapsed already in the current month and think that is the same thing as another developer who simply calculated the total elapsed days in the month.

The first part of this article illustrated how we can unload the heavy lifting of building date related calculations to our overnight ETL process. This part will discuss using a very cool feature of IBM Cognos 8 called Parameter Maps to expose that logic for report developers.

A parameter map is a way to expose a scalar (single item) data value. This is a subtle point but if you think about it – all queries return sets. Even if only one row is returned – it is a set. Many useful functions and calculations cannot consume a set (even if it only has one column and one row) and they must have a scalar value.

One of the great features of IBM Cognos 8 is that Parameter Maps not only allow you to retrieve these scalar values but they allow you to reference them by an key value of your choosing. You are also allowed to define all of this centrally in the Framework Manager metadata and consume these scalar values from Parameter Maps in other centrally defined Prompts and Filters.

To create a new Parameter Map from within Framework Manager simply right-click on Parameter Maps and select Create > Parameter Map from the pop-up menu. You are given a choice to create the parameter map manually but that would make it static (which could be useful for some things like your company name!) Select the option, “Base the parameter map on existing Query Items.” instead and give it a name. This will make the Parameter Map be driven by our control table which is dynamic since our ETL process updates it nightly.

Since the control table in Part 1 of this post had columns for Integer, Character, Smalldatetime and Float data types I’d probably name this one something like pmStatus_Integer and expect to create three additional parameter maps – one for each of the data types.

Select the control table that we created in Part 1 and use the Set as Key and Set as Value buttons to make the parameter name the key and the Integer Value the value.

Finish up the Create Parameter Map wizard and you’ve successfully exposed your control values as a parameter map. Next let’s look at how you might use this within Framework Manager.

The first thing that leaps to mind is to use it with Filters. Creating Filters within Framework Manager is a really great technique because they are defined centrally and can be easily reused everywhere in reports, queries, etc. This helps you define that “single version of the truth.” Here is a snapshot from Framework Manager showing a few Filters and Calculations.

Let’s look at how the Parameter Map is used in one of these calculations. Let’s look at Last 13 Months as an example.

What this Filter is doing is filtering the date dimension so that only dates that are greater than the date 13 months ago and less than our current Reporting Effective Date are returned. The parameter map pmStatus_Smalldatetime is being referenced and I’m retrieving specific values via the two keys, “13 months prior to Reporting Effective datetime” and “Reporting Effective Datetime”. Notice that I like to use very descriptive names as keys.

If you actually look at the SQL generated when this Filter is used you’ll see it is efficiently filtering the dimension table (not the fact which may have many more rows) and that all of the filtering is being done in the SQL sent to the database server.

Here is a really simple Query Studio query before I apply the Filter. Notice how many months of data are being returned.

Now I simply drag the Last 13 Months filter to my query surface and…

Voila! Now I’ve used the power of a control table in my data mart and parameter maps in Framework Manager to deliver a very easy to use and fully dynamic set of filters that can be reused over and over.

Because the underlying control table is dynamic the date 13 months prior to the effective reporting date is being updated every night automatically. So the report developer or end user doesn’t have to do this calculation.

A common challenge that we see with all of our many IBM Cognos 8 clients is dealing with date logic. The most common forms for this challenge are around relative dates:

• How can I filter this report to only show the last x months of data?
• Can we display only the closed financial periods?
• I want to display the name of the current month in the header of my report

Unfortunately the most common approach to solving these sorts of issues is to either make the person running the report respond to a prompt to determine the needed filtering values or to put very complex date logic into functions in the report. Making the user provide the information is annoying to the user (why can’t this report just know what the last x months are?) and prone to misinterpretation at runtime (e.g. I thought I was supposed to pick the invoice dates that I wanted – not the ship dates!) Putting complex date logic in the reports is difficult to maintain, poorly performing and runs the risk that each report developer may take a slightly different and inconsistent approach to delivering a solution.

Our recommended approach is to have the Extraction, Transformation and Loading (ETL) process do the heavy lifting of date calculations and then leverage a powerful IBM Cognos feature called Parameter Maps to easily expose those calculations for use in reports.

The ETL process is crucial because it runs on a regular time interval (often on a nightly basis) so it can easily deliver calculations that involve relative dates – dates that are relative to now. We create a SQL table in our data mart that is very simple like this:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[pcon_ctl_status](
    [status_key] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [status_parameter_name] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [status_parameter_description] [varchar](100) NULL,
    [status_int_value] [int] NULL,
    [status_char_value] [varchar](100) NULL,
    [status_smalldatetime_value] [smalldatetime] NULL,
    [status_float_value] [float] NULL,
CONSTRAINT [pcon_ctl_status_PK] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
    [status_key] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

GO

The idea is that we populate this table with one row for every useful scalar value that we can think of – some examples include:

• The last time our ETL process was executed (so we know how current our data is)
• The date 13 months before the current date (if we do a lot of rolling 13 month reporting.)
• Any sort of calculated time period factors (what percentage of the working days in the current month have already elapsed?)

So the data in the resulting table looks something like this:

 

Every night the ETL process runs and updates the values in the status_xxx_value columns of this table. These are the four columns to the far right in the screen shot above. The most common way for the ETL process to do this is via a simple SQL script that gets executed at the end of the ETL process.

 

The screen shot above shows some of the update statements executing from within the IBM Cognos DecisionStream ETL tool but we also commonly do this from within Microsoft SQL Server SSIS jobs.

The next post in this series will explain how we now use this data inside our IBM Cognos 8 reporting environment.

We do quite abit of .NET Development here at Perkins Consulting and like to stay on top of current technology, software architecture, and new technology.  I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Microsoft PDC 2009 Conference in Los Angeles, CA.  Below are some notes and details.

Recap

These are notes condensed from 4 days of note taking in OneNote.

Stuff that got announced

• Microsoft Pinpoint - greater assistance in lead generation - http://pinpoint.microsoft.com/en-US/ – I didn’t know this existed but it looks like it’s been around awhile
• Microsoft Codename "Dallas" - find, purchase and manage datasets - http://pinpoint.microsoft.com/en-US/Dallas - I think this is deployed via Sql Azure Services
• Azure - going live Jan start billing Feb
• IE9 in development
• Silverlight 4 Beta available now
• Office, SharePoint and Visio 2010 Public Beta as of now
• OData - official name for protocol for WCF Data Services (formerly ADO.NET Data Services or codename Astoria or AtomPub) http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/ee844254.aspx
• SQL Server Modeling Services - Olso, M (textual modeling language), and Quadrant (data-driven applications) http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/default.aspx, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/ee477952.aspx
• Duet Enterprise for SharePoint and SAP - consume and extend SAP from SharePoint 2010
• Outlook Social Connector - general SDK
• MIX10 - Conference in March in Vegas

Main Theme

3 screens and a cloud  (next 'wave' is Cloud computing [Mainframe (1970's) --> client-server (1980's) --> web (1990's) --> soa (2000's) --> cloud (2010's)]

• Phone, TV, PC
• Silverlight being the client mechanism (they are really pushing this to be the main UI mechanism)

Data playing increasingly larger role - Vivek Kundra - Chief Information Officer for the USA live via video feed

• make information public - for public consumption and transparency of data
• data.gov - searchable data catalogs

Conference Sessions Attended (11) + 1 pre-conference workshop

Workshop

1. Developing Microsoft BI Applications - The How and the Why
   1. Note that I struggled with this decision.  I signed up for Getting the Most out of Microsoft Silverlight 3 but having spent the last 9 months on a Silverlight project for one of our clients, I did not think it was going to be that beneficial.  There’s a ton of info on the web for Silverlight.  However, there’s not much for BI.  The Silverlight application I worked on sits on top of a Analysis Services Cube – the API is completely different than just throwing down a Entity Framework model on top of a relational database (which I did as well for some parts of it).  This app has an AdoMdDataReader, CellSet and MDX statements.  I was curious how others approached this area.

Sessions

1. Data Programming and Modeling for the .NET Developer - SQL Server Modeling Services
2. Overview of SharePoint 2010 Programmability
3. Evolving ADO.NET Entity Framework in Microsoft.NET Framework 4 and Beyond
4. SketchFlow: Prototyping to the Rescue
5. Microsoft Perspectives on the Future of Programming
6. Should I Use Silverlight, MVC, or Web Forms for Web User Interface Development?
7. Networking and Web Services in Silverlight
8. Advanced Topics for Building Large-Scale Applications with Microsoft Silverlight
9. Automating the App Lifecycle with Windows Azure
10. SQL Server Modeling Services: Using Metadata to Drive Application Design, Development and Management
11. Mastering Microsoft WCF RIA Services

Conference Sessions I wanted to attend, 44.

There was alot of concurrent session angst for me.  At any given time slot, there were 11 sessions and many of those I wanted to attend more than one in that time slot.  Luckily it was all being recorded and available at PDC, http://microsoftpdc.com/.  It will be interesting to see how making this all available online affects conference attendance in the future.

I might add that one of my favorite sessions, ‘Should I Use Silverlight, MVC, or Web Forms for Web User Interface Development?’, was an audience participation session where I got to talk quite alot because out of the mass of people in the session, I was one of the few using Silverlight in a LOB application for one of our clients.  However since it was audience participation, there is no video or audio available – an experience you can only get by being there.

Conclusion

Overall I thought this conference extremely worthwhile.  To be able to see the direction of the software industry and to see how much data is going to play a part in the future.  I think Perkins, having years of experience with Data Warehouse projects, is sitting in a perfect position to take advantage.

Last night I saw upon the stair

A little man who wasn’t there

He wasn’t there again today

Oh, how I wish he’d go away

--from Antigonish by Hughes Mearns

 

Recently, I’ve been assisting a client in moving their data mart databases and SSIS packages to a new server.  Prior to decommissioning the old server, I was comparing package execution results, and came across an anomaly as exposed by our standard audit infrastructure tables.  In reviewing the package execution table, it appeared that several of the packages were being logged more than once (same package guid and execution guid but different execution keys).

 

I could tell by reviewing the SQL Agent job history that each of these packages only executed once, and the rows in the package execution table were not completely identical – the columns that are normally updated at the end of the execution were null for one of the rows in each duplcate set.  Hmmmmm…. Obviously, something goofy was happening in the package, related to the instantiation and update of the package execution record.

When I opened the packages in question, I saw that the Control Flow pane included the three normal audit infrastructure sequence containers that are part of all our packages.  However, I noticed something.  Two of the infrastructure sequence containers had the numeral one appended to the container name.

 

Usually, this means that the SSIS developer has copied and pasted an object with a name that already exists in the package context.  BIDS appends sequential numerals to objects in these cases, to make sure the object names are unique.  I searched the Control Flow pane, but could find no duplicates for the containers.  Sure, it was possible that the developer who created the package had copied from an open package and hadn’t renamed the objects in his destination package, but I had the evidence of the package execution table screaming at me that the code was firing more than once.  Also, I wasn’t able to remove the trailing numerals from the container names without BIDS throwing an error, so SSIS still believed that the containers existed within the package. 

Invisible code.  Oh, yeah.  We hate that.

I was reduced to observing what was right in front of my nose – the Package Explorer tab.  I’m embarrassed to say that in over five years of working with SSIS, I have never looked at that tab before.  However, the Package Explorer tab does not hold a grudge – even though I’d ignored it all this time, it helped me out anyway.

When I expanded the Executables node, I could see that the two infrastructure containers were indeed duplicated.  By right-clicking on the ones that were not displayed on the Control Flow tab (the items without the trailing numeral), I was able to delete them.  I was then able to rename the visible containers, removing the trailing numeral without error.