Press Release: APOS Data Gateway Now SAP-Certified

APOS Systems today announced that its two APOS Data Gateway solutions (Lumira Edition and Design Studio Edition) are now SAP-Certified and available for download at the SAP Analytics Extensions Directory.

The APOS Data Gateway, Lumira Edition, allows SAP Lumira users to connect to Web Intelligence reports, as well as to any relational data sources, and use them as data sources for their Lumira projects. The APOS Data Gateway, Design Studio Edition, allows SAP Design Studio users to connect to Web Intelligence reports as a data source for their Design Studio projects, and to expand data connection options and data volume. By using a Web Intelligence report as a data source, the Lumira or Design Studio project can inherit the report's data connection options, such UNV, HANA, UNX and BEx, as well as inherit the report's Web Intelligence calculation engine, or inherit a Web Intelligence instance's pre-loaded and pre-calculated data.

These two newly certified solutions join a number of other APOS solutions available at the SAP Analytics Extensions Directory. The Directory provides access to the full range of extensions built by SAP partners to help SAP Analytics customers fill any gaps in their SAP Analytics requirements.

Read the Full Press Release

Data Connectivity and Self-Serve BI

The business case for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4 is fairly simple: embrace SAP's vision of the future of business intelligence, including mobile BI and self-service BI, while lowering your total cost of ownership.

Self-service BI has its upside and its downside. The upside is that anyone in your organization that has access to SAP BusinessObjects can query enterprise data via universes, often with a Web Intelligence report, which allows them to make well informed decisions based on the most current and trusted enterprise information. This benefit justifies the adoption of self-service BI fully.

The downside of self-service BI falls on the platform management and administration side of the story, and it is two-fold. Firstly, self-service BI may lead to a proliferation of content -- more users creating more new reports, report iterations or exploration views, many of which may be for very limited use. If you've already migrated from XI 3 to BI 4, think back to the process you went through to rationalize content prior to migration. Think of self-service BI as a multiplier factor on that process, and you start to see the need for a proactive approach to BI content management. (Look at APOS Storage Center for such an approach.)

Secondly, and more importantly for the day-to-day operations of your BI platform, self-service BI takes some control of the volume and quality of the BI system's data connectivity away from platform managers and administrators and places it squarely in the hands of information consumers. This exchange is necessary for self-service BI to be of any benefit, but administrators are averse to giving up their control over data connectivity, as it impacts their ability to manage effectively and minimize bottlenecks.

If yours is one of those organizations that plan to take greater advantage of self-service BI across the enterprise, then BI data connectivity will become a bigger issue. In an ideal world, your universes would all be so well designed that there would be no issues with query performance, and end users would know better than to test the limits. But we don't live in that world. So your alternative is to monitor BI data connectivity proactively and act decisively to protect the integrity and dependability of your BI platform.

The APOS Intelligent Data Access Controller (IDAC)can help you become proactive with your data connectivity issues. Use it to monitor, manage and audit BI data connectivity. With IDAC, you can:

• Track queries in real time
• Receive automatic alerts when established thresholds are exceeded
• Intervene manually in queries
• Cancel runaway queries automatically
• Audit BI data connectivity

Webinar Reminder: SAP BusinessObjects Data Connectivity, Sensitive DataAudit

When: Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013 at 10 am and 4 pm ET

Learn how to mitigate growing performance and compliance risks caused by increasing BI data connection complexity and expanding regulatory requirements.

Effective control of your SAP BusinessObjects deployment depends on query performance optimization and data access accountability. But many of the processes and activities that influence optimization and accountability are typically outside of the BI environment and outside of the direct control of SAP BusinessObjects administrators and platform managers.

View a 3 min. video preview of the webinar

The time to gain control of those processes and activities is now, because you face growing complexity in your SAP BusinessObjects data access and data accountability requirements. In addition to internal query performance challenges, there are audit and monitoring requirements mandated by regulatory compliance. There is no question that these issues represent substantial risk to your organization's success and security.

In this webinar, we will discuss data connectivity issues that present a risk to every data-driven organization, including:

• Data Visibility and Control -Monitoring and Managing Data Connectivity
• Sensitive Data Auditing -Data Access Monitoring and Regulatory Compliance

The webinar will also introduce you to the APOS Intelligent Data Access Controller (IDAC), a data access, audit, and accountability solution specifically designed to help SAP BusinessObjects administrators and technicians monitor and manage BI data connections and queries.

White Paper: SAP BusinessObjects Data Access, Audit, and Accountability with the APOS Intelligent Data Access Controller (IDAC)

One of the most commonly used adjectives for the BI platform manager and BI administrator occupations is "challenging," and understandably so. If BI is your responsibility, over time you will likely face more data, more data sources, more information consumers, and less time to deliver an increasingly complex array of information products.

Even in the best-designed and most highly optimized deployment, these factors will combine to create anomalies in your day to operations. How do you get a handle on query performance issues? How do you track access to sensitive data within increased query activity? These are not merely questions of efficiency. They are questions of risk management and regulatory compliance.

The APOS Intelligent Data Access Controller (IDAC) is a data source agnostic solution for SAP BusinessObjects that can vastly improve the ability of BI platform managers, administrators and technicians to exert control over data and data access across multiple applications, operating systems, and data sources and types. This solution helps you manage and audit data access and activity across technologies, while improving system performance, information security, data privacy, and regulatory accountability.

This white paper provides an in-depth discussion of query performance and sensitive data auditing issues, and how you can use APOS IDAC to achieve greater efficiency and manage risk.

Download the white paper:

Data Access, Audit, and Accountability with the APOS Intelligent Data Access Controller (IDAC)

Webinar: SAP BusinessObjects Data Connectivity, Sensitive Data Auditing

What:The APOS Intelligent Data Access Controller (IDAC) Webinar
When: Wednesday, February 20, 2013, at 10 am and 4 pm ET

It's hard to manage what you can't see. Full BI data connection visibility and active BI query control is typically well beyond the reach of most SAP BusinessObjects administrators and platform managers - those who need it most!
Yet you face growing complexity in your SAP BusinessObjects data access, sensitive data audit, and data accountability requirements. In addition to internal query performance challenges, there are audit and monitoring requirements mandated by regulatory compliance. There is no question that these issues represent substantial risk to your organization's success and security.
In this webinar, we will discuss data connectivity issues that present a risk to every data-driven organization, including:

• Data Visibility and Control - Monitoring and Managing Data Connectivity
• Sensitive Data Auditing - Data Access Monitoring and Regulatory Compliance

The webinar will also introduce you to the APOS Intelligent Data Access Controller (IDAC), a data access, audit, and accountability solution specifically designed to help SAP BusinessObjects administrators and technicians monitor and manage BI data connections and queries.

View a 3-minute preview of the webinar.