I find myself in a situation where I need to drop a few pounds. Common thoughts for this time of year, but I'm taking a different approach this time and want to blog about my experience.

Many organizations just deploy SAP BusinessObjects without a thought for securing HTTP traffic or intra-server communication. But what you probably didn't realize is basic packet sniffing tools can allow nefarious individuals within your own walls to watch those little packets of bytes fly by with Windows AD, LDAP, or SAP Authentication tokens included within them. So what is the probability that other, mission critical applications within your organization use those same authentication tokens? High. Very high. So what is an administrator to do? Let's dissect.

BI4 has given administrators something they have been asking for for years: the ability to set the Default User Preferences.

Unfortunately its not the complete list of all the user preferences, but it is a good start including some of the major pain points administrators have to deal with:

• Start page customizations
• Columns displayed in Documents tab
• Document viewing location
• Maximum Number of rows to display (Yeah)

Upon getting access to a BI system that has some means of self-service, users can become a little excited at the prospects of getting access to information that has long been hidden behind the wall of IT. They can now create their own reports. They can pull down data, analyze it, and turn it into something that their various teams can action. They can create schedules where important information can be updated while they're sleeping and be sent to all of their team members. It's a world of free flowing information and it has all been made possible by the wonderful BI product that they've purchased - SAP BusinessObjects in our case.

Anybody that has been in the BusinessObjects Admin area of expertise for a long time knows that with each upgrade, the platform requirements get bigger and more substantial. The new BI4 is no exception. While that is the underpinnings of this post, what I really want to hit on is the role that virtualization will or will not play in the future of BI4.