Laws Of The Land
Inevitably, BI-generated aggregations and other intermediate analytical data stores house sensitive or proprietary information, meaning any BI implementation must address security and privacy concerns. Most BI vendors pay heed to database and network security best practices; however, newer systems are getting tougher, using guided analytics and role-based access to protect data sources. Master data management (sharing a master data set among disparate IT systems and groups) and other infrastructure-management capabilities are rapidly becoming enterprise BI product differentiators.
Of course, the hammer that will really pound vendors into shape is regulatory compliance. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, for example, outlines "need-to-know" access to data. For compliance with Basel II, HIPAA and other regulations, companies need better audit trails, better data quality and improved security. They also must be able to track what information and analysis contributed to a business decision. BI and data warehousing can help improve accountability and stewardship of information resources. However, BI and analytics activity will put database and application managers under added pressure to safeguard data sources from suspicious queries, aggregations, loading and other activity.
Regulatory compliance is pushing some BI vendors specializing in performance management, such as Cognos and Hyperion, to expand their roles beyond passive, strategic business analysis. Through partnering with search technology providers, BI's reach is broadening into unstructured data found in Office documents, e-mail, voicemail and other assets. Rather than focusing on discrete transactions, BI must be able to comprehend events amid a sea of data to address fraud detection, security surveillance, and new business activities such as RFID tracking and algorithmic trading in financial services. Previously, BI has kept its focus on the past, primarily on relational, transactional data. With help from search, XML and event processing technology, the blinders are starting to lift, and none too soon.
The X Factor
