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THE WHO AND WHAT OF MOBILE BI ARCHITECTING FOR MOBILE BI: CLIENT, SERVER, OR HYBRID? MOBILE BI DEVICES: WHICH ONE IS RIGHT FOR YOUR COMPANY? THE UNSPOKEN CHALLENGE IN DELIVERING MOBILE BI sponsored by A Complete Primer To Mobile BI business intelligence (bI) is a natural fit for mobile devices. More orga- nizations are considering mobile BI not just for executives, but for a variety of workers who need access to data when not at their seats. The technology and devices have evolved to make mobile BI cost-effective to deploy—better smartphones, new tablets and faster networks have all changed the game for mobile programs. Yet, many challenges remain around architecting, imple- menting and managing programs successfully. In this e-book, appropriate for business intelligence professionals, get a complete, accessible overview of mobile BI from industry expert Wayne Eckerson. ReadeRs will: Learn what types of employees, tasks and tools are suited for mobile BI p p programs. Find out how to evaluate which mobile BI architecture is a fit for your p p organization. Get advice on how to determine which mobile device types your organiza- p p tion should support— and learn the role of mobile data management software. Read more about the pitfalls and unique challenges to be aware of with p p mobile BI programs. BY WAYNE ECKERSON, Director of Research

A Complete Primer To Mobile BI - Oracle · the office. But before you ... The traditional poster boy for mo-bile BI is the jet-setting executive who ... june 2011 a complete primer

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The Who and WhaT of

Mobile bi

archiTecTing for Mobile bi:

clienT, Server, or hybrid?

Mobile bi deviceS:

Which one iS righT for your

coMpany?

The unSpoken challenge

in delivering Mobile bi

sponsored by

A Complete PrimerTo Mobile BI

business intelligence (bI) is a natural fit for mobile devices. More orga-nizations are considering mobile BI not just for executives, but for a variety of workers who need access to data when not at their seats. The technology and devices have evolved to make mobile BI cost-effective to deploy—better smartphones, new tablets and faster networks have all changed the game for mobile programs. Yet, many challenges remain around architecting, imple-menting and managing programs successfully. In this e-book, appropriate for business intelligence professionals, get a complete, accessible overview of mobile BI from industry expert Wayne Eckerson.

ReadeRs will: Learn what types of employees, tasks and tools are suited for mobile BI pp

programs.

Find out how to evaluate which mobile BI architecture is a fit for your pp

organization.

Get advice on how to determine which mobile device types your organiza-pp

tion should support— and learn the role of mobile data management software.

Read more about the pitfalls and unique challenges to be aware of with pp

mobile BI programs.

by Wayne eckerSon, Director of Research

The Who and WhaT of

Mobile bi

archiTecTing for Mobile bi:

clienT, Server, or hybrid?

Mobile bi deviceS:

Which one iS righT for your

coMpany?

The unSpoken challenge

in delivering Mobile bi

june 2011 a complete primer to mobile bi 2

SponSored by

The Who and What of Mobile BI

martphones and tablet computers are selling like hotcakes. Soon, a large swath of your employees

will have these devices and want to run corporate applications on them, in-cluding business intelligence (BI).

BI is a natural fit for mobile devices. Many workers today spend a majority of their time away from their desks and can’t easily access corporate informa-tion. Most are traveling, walking about or driving from site to site. And it’s these mobile workers who often need the most up-to-date information. They need BI to make on-the-spot decisions, monitor operational processes and make efficient use of their time out of the office.

But before you embark on a major initiative to empower your entire work-force with mobile BI capabilities, ask the following three questions:

Which employees will benefit 1. most from mobile BI? Which BI tasks make the most 2. sense in a mobile environment? Is your mobile BI provider capable 3. of supporting these BI tasks?

Types of UseRs It’s not too hard to identify who might need mobile BI capabilities: employees who spend a good portion of their time away from a desk and need to check data several times a day is a good can-didate for a mobile BI application.

The traditional poster boy for mo-bile BI is the jet-setting executive who wants to check the status of key com-pany metrics while traveling to and from customer sites and work loca-tions. Traveling salespeople are also good candidates, because they need up-to-date information about custom-ers prior to making onsite sales calls. Line managers (e.g., store managers,

s

The Who and WhaT of

Mobile bi

archiTecTing for Mobile bi:

clienT, Server, or hybrid?

Mobile bi deviceS:

Which one iS righT for your

coMpany?

The unSpoken challenge

in delivering Mobile bi

june 2011 a complete primer to mobile bi 3

SponSored by

factory floor managers, construction supervisors and school principals) are also prime candidates, since they need timely information to manage re-sources and staff. But these folks also need to “walk around”—interact with customers and employees—and not sit behind a desk looking at numbers.

Operational workers also offer fertile ground for mobile BI. Field technicians, for example, spend most of their time in company trucks traveling to and from work sites where they install, monitor and fix core infrastructure (e.g., utility lines, rail lines, pipelines and roadways). Likewise, customer service technicians who install or repair residential and commercial products (e.g., heating and ventila-tion, elevators, office systems) do not work in a fixed location yet must have access to up-to-date information to perform their work effectively and stay on schedule. Other candidates include internal technicians, such as IT profes-sionals, who are on call 24 hours a day and need to troubleshoot or respond to problems remotely.

Employees who spend most of their time in the office don’t need mobile BI. Among BI users, these include busi-ness analysts, statisticians and report developers. These folks are tradition-ally deskbound, and the work they do—intensive crunching of numbers, and report and model creation—is best done with high-powered desktop com-puters, not on the current generation of mobile devices.

Some argue that mid-level managers need mobile BI because they spend a lot of time in various conference rooms running meetings, facilitating the ex-change of information and monitoring follow-up tasks. But most mid-level managers already have laptop comput-ers that they can carry to conference rooms, plug in and connect to high-speed networks. In my opinion, mid-level managers don’t have a critical need for mobile BI, unless they travel frequently.

Types of TasksRobert Hylton, vice president at Trans-para Corp., a mobile BI vendor, offers three criteria for evaluating the types of tasks that make sense for mobile BI:

Here and now? Do the tasks need 1. to be addressed immediately? Small and intangible? Is the in-2. formation about the tasks easy to digest? Perishable? Does the information 3. lose value if it’s not acted upon right away?

Asking the above three questions at the outset of a project can help clarify what BI applications make sense to de-ploy on a mobile platform. “Many deci-sion makers are surprised once they go through this process,” Hylton said.

Mobile Dashboards. What’s left after weeding out applications that don’t

The Who and WhaT of

Mobile bi

archiTecTing for Mobile bi:

clienT, Server, or hybrid?

Mobile bi deviceS:

Which one iS righT for your

coMpany?

The unSpoken challenge

in delivering Mobile bi

june 2011 a complete primer to mobile bi 4

SponSored by

meet these criteria? Two types of mo-bile dashboard applications, one for executives and one for workers.

The executive dashboard enables a CXO to monitor key performance in-dicators (KPIs) across their enterprise and keep his finger on the pulse of the business. The operational dashboard enables operational workers to moni-tor operational activity and gauge their own performance compared with peers. Both types of dashboards dis-play performance status according to plan and enable users to drill into de-tailed data and view time series charts that reflect past and future trends. The best mobile dashboards support an action framework that enables users to attach a chart to an email message, link to another dashboard or view or trigger a workflow or database update.

Data. The data for mobile dashboards usually comes from a data warehouse or data mart and consists of both sum-mary and detail data loaded on a daily or weekly basis. However, if the dash-board tracks operational activity, then the data either comes from a real-time enabled data warehouse or directly from operational sys-tems via real-time queries.

Hylton defined his criteria with 2-inch screen smart-phones in mind. But the advent of tablet computers, such as Apple’s popular iPad, which support 8-inch, high-resolution screens, changes

the equation. (See “Mobile Devices: Which One is Right For Your Com-pany.”) Many mobile BI providers now say that they can run virtually any BI application on a tablet computer be-cause its screen size is comparable to that of most office computers. This includes complex reports, ad hoc ana-lytics and self-service BI. Mobility in 2011 and beyond knows virtually no BI bounds.

Mapping devices To fUncTionaliTyOne way to evaluate the range of BI functionality available for mobile de-vices is to classify functionality by types of users. At a high level, there are two types: information consumers who use information to do their jobs (e.g., executives, managers, front-line work-ers) and information producers who create information for others to con-sume (e.g., business analysts, report developers, statisticians). (See Table 1.)

Smartphones and tablet computers exhibit slightly different footprints in the functional hierarchies depicted in

TABle 1: bi functionality by Type of bi userInformatIon Consumer InformatIon ProduCer

View Personalize

Navigate Assemble

Modify Craft

Explore Source

Act Develop

The Who and WhaT of

Mobile bi

archiTecTing for Mobile bi:

clienT, Server, or hybrid?

Mobile bi deviceS:

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The unSpoken challenge

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june 2011 a complete primer to mobile bi 5

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Table 1. Smartphones let users view KPI charts or lists and navigate predefined drill paths to view additional details. A few mobile BI vendors enable smart-phone users to modify existing views (e.g., toggle between tables and charts and rank, sort, calculate, visualize or create new columns) as well as act on information by updating remote ap-plications or databases or triggering workflows. Some may even let users personalize screen displays by changing color schemes and fonts, selecting fa-vorites or saving bookmarks. However, this type of smartphone functionality is not widely supported by BI vendors. (See Table 2.)

Tablet computers, however, give mo-bile BI designers more breathing room to support the full range of consumer-oriented BI functionality. On a tablet computer, users can modify data in columns, explore data in any direction (versus being limited to predefined drill paths) as well as act on informa-tion via a variety of mechanisms, most notably email and annotations. Tablets

even enable information producers go beyond personalization to assemble simple dashboards and reports from a library of existing parts and compo-nents. The remaining “producer” func-tions are still best done on a desktop computer linked to a high speed net-work. (See Table 2.)

final Mapping If we put it all together, we might cre-ate a map like the one represented in Table 3. For each type of user, the map defines the mobility requirements, types of tasks and data requirements. The mapping concludes that users with a high need for mobile BI functionality are executives, outside salespeople and line managers (e.g., factory floor man-agers, school principals, store manag-ers.) Field and in-house technicians have a moderate need, and mid-level managers have minimal need.

Before diving headlong into the world of mobile BI, it’s critical that user organizations take some time to as-

TABle 2: bi functionality: Smartphones versus Tablets smartPhone tablet

View Personalize* View Personalize

Navigate -- Navigate Assemble

Modify* -- Modify --

-- -- Explore --

Act* -- Act --

* Not widely supported

The Who and WhaT of

Mobile bi

archiTecTing for Mobile bi:

clienT, Server, or hybrid?

Mobile bi deviceS:

Which one iS righT for your

coMpany?

The unSpoken challenge

in delivering Mobile bi

june 2011 a complete primer to mobile bi 6

SponSored by

sess user requirements and map them to mobile BI functionality offered by BI vendors. Even if your mobile BI vendor doesn’t deliver everything you need

right now, chances are that it will soon support your requirements; this space is evolving rapidly, and vendors are anxious to not fall behind. p

TABle 3: Mapping users To Mobile bi requirementstyPe of user mobIlIty mobIle bI tasks data need

exeCutIve

Travel to and from customer and work

sitesNights/

weekends

dashboards: Check KPI status with simple drill down and time-series views

dimensional reports: 360-degree views of customers, employees, suppliers,

projects, etc.

Historical, Summary High

mId-level manager

Travel to and from

conference rooms

kpi dashboards: Check status with simple drill down and time-series views

project reports: Timelines and details

Historical, Summary,

DetailLow

lIne manager

Supervise domain by

walking and talking

dashboards: Monitor store and employee performance

operational reports: Check inventory, shipments, complaints, staffing

actions: Scan inventory, order products, schedule meetings, award merits/

demerits, etc.

Historical, Summary,

Detail, Real time

High

outsIde salesPeoPle

Travel to and from

clients

dimensional report: 360-degree view of customers sales/interactions

actions: Update customer records, submit orders

Historical, Summary,

Detail, Real time

High

fIeld teChnICIans

Travel to and from

customer/ work sites

dashboard: Review personal performance and bonus points

reports: Check customer and work site inventory and records

actions: Update customer/work site records, submit orders

Historical, Summary,

Detail, Real time

Moderate

Internal teChnICIans

Travel across

corporate campus;

Nights and weekends

dashboards: View KPI status and real-time trends

alerts: View errors and exception actions: Log in, troubleshoot

Historical, Summary,

Detail, Real-time

Moderate

The Who and WhaT of

Mobile bi

archiTecTing for Mobile bi:

clienT, Server, or hybrid?

Mobile bi deviceS:

Which one iS righT for your

coMpany?

The unSpoken challenge

in delivering Mobile bi

june 2011 a complete primer to mobile bi 7

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Architecting for Mobile BI: Client, server, or Hybrid?

or the past 20 years, application architects have debated whether to deploy software ap-plications on client ma-

chines or servers or some combination of the two. This debate has spanned a half-dozen different types of comput-ing platforms, from mainframes and minicomputers in the 1970s and 1980s to desktop and client/server systems in the 1990s, and to the Web and Web services in the 2000s. Today, applica-tion architects now have a new plat-form upon which to wage their peren-nial debate: mobile devices.

Mobile devices resurrect the notion of a “fat client” that had largely disap-peared with the advent of Web-based computing. Fat clients generally offer fast performance and superior graphical interfaces, while Web-based applica-tions—which execute application code on a remote server—simplify develop-ment, deployment and administration.

Over time, fat and thin client archi-tectures generally blur into distributed architectures in which application pro-cessing is spread across clients, appli-cation servers and databases. In fact, a good portion of many Web-based applications today execute on the cli-ent via browser-based components (e.g., Java applets, Active X controls, DHTML and Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX), or Flash plug-ins), making so-called Web “thin” clients a tad “heavier” than is generally known.

vendoR debaTesAs a new application platform, mo-bile devices pose a stark architectural choice for organizations that want to deploy mobile business intelligence (BI) applications. They can either build unique, exquisite-looking BI applica-tions for each mobile device, or they can build a single browser-based applica-tion that runs the same on all devices.

f

The Who and WhaT of

Mobile bi

archiTecTing for Mobile bi:

clienT, Server, or hybrid?

Mobile bi deviceS:

Which one iS righT for your

coMpany?

The unSpoken challenge

in delivering Mobile bi

june 2011 a complete primer to mobile bi 8

SponSored by

During the past year, every BI ven-dor has engaged in an intense, internal debate about which mobile BI archi-tecture to adopt. Some vendors, such as MicroStrategy Inc. and MeLLmo, makers of Roambi, have embraced na-tive mobile BI applications, believing that users ultimately want feature-rich, device-specific mobile applications. Others, such as Transpara Corp. and QlikTech, are betting that browser-based mobile BI applications will even-tually steal the day. Many others, in-cluding Oracle Corp. and IBM Cognos, have decided to hedge their bets and produce hybrid applications that strive to offer the best of both camps while minimizing the downsides.

As a BI manager in a user organiza-tion, you need to carefully evaluate the mobile BI architecture adopted by your mobile BI vendor. You need to understand the ramifications that your vendors’ chosen mobile BI architecture will have on ease of use, adoption, de-ployment times, maintenance and total cost of ownership for your mobile BI initiative.

Let’s take a look at the two mobile BI architectures and then examine their hybrid offshoots.

naTive Mobile applicaTionsThere are three main advantages to running native mobile BI applications: (1) performance, (2) user experience and (3) offline access. Native mobile BI applications offer exceptional per-

formance because the data that com-prises a report or dashboard is down-loaded and stored on the device. Fast performance makes applications very responsive and highly interactive.

The user experience of native ap-plications is also superior. This is due in part to fast performance, but also because native applications exploit unique features and functions inherent in the devices, such as touch-screens that support hand gestures or accel-erometers that let users rotate the de-vice to switch between a portrait and landscape view. Anyone who has ever used an Apple iPhone or iPad under-stands the unique experiences these devices make possible. Having tasted mobile paradise, most don’t want to go back!

Finally, because native applications store data locally, they work even when the device is not connected to a net-work. Offline access is critical for ex-ecutives who spend a lot of time in the air or salespeople whose districts don’t offer reliable network connections, or plant managers who might lose con-nectivity in the bowels of a manufac-turing plant.

bRowseR-based applicaTionsConversely, browser-based mobile BI applications offer three unique advan-tages: (1) portability, (2) data consis-tency and (3) security.

Rather than write an application for each individual mobile device, develop-

The Who and WhaT of

Mobile bi

archiTecTing for Mobile bi:

clienT, Server, or hybrid?

Mobile bi deviceS:

Which one iS righT for your

coMpany?

The unSpoken challenge

in delivering Mobile bi

june 2011 a complete primer to mobile bi 9

SponSored by

ers can write a single HTML/JavaScript application that runs the same on any device that supports a browser, virtu-ally unchanged. Although there are slight differences among browsers that must be accounted for during develop-ment, in general, developers can build once and deploy everywhere, and this includes desktops, laptops and confer-ence room or operation center flat-screen monitors. This is sweet music to developers and IT administrators who would rather maintain one appli-cation than a half-dozen variants.

In a browser-based mobile BI ap-plication, the application and data reside on a server, which means that nothing is downloaded to the device. This prevents applications and data from getting out of sync, eliminating the propagation of analytic silos. Em-ployees access the same server-side reports and data, and that preserves information consistency. Additionally, it is easier to enforce security since all data, code and passwords are man-aged centrally on the server. If a device is lost or stolen, hackers can’t walk off with sensitive corporate data.

HybRid solUTionsInterestingly, the advantages of each architectural approach represent the downsides of the other approach. Not surprisingly, given the market poten-tial for mobile BI, vendors are quickly plugging the gaps in their respective architectures and delivering hybrid

solutions that maximize benefits and minimize downsides.

Hybrid Native Applications. BI ven-dors that embrace native mobile BI applications have added capabilities that address portability, data consis-tency and security issues. For example, some now offer universal applications or templates that can be compiled into the native languages of all major

devices without change. This means developers only have to create an ap-plication once to run it natively on any device. Typically, these applications are created by the BI vendor rather than the user organization, but the ap-plications support the predominant functionality required in a mobile envi-ronment. (See “The Who and What of Mobile BI.”)

To improve data consistency, some vendors now configure native mobile BI applications to download fresh data on startup or on demand so that users

given the market poten tial for mobilebi, vendors are quickly plugging the gaps in theirrespective architecturesand delivering hybrid solutions.

The Who and WhaT of

Mobile bi

archiTecTing for Mobile bi:

clienT, Server, or hybrid?

Mobile bi deviceS:

Which one iS righT for your

coMpany?

The unSpoken challenge

in delivering Mobile bi

june 2011 a complete primer to mobile bi 10

SponSored by

always work with the most up-to-date information possible. From a security perspective, they’ve given remote ad-ministrators the ability to selectively wipe device disks if a device is lost or stolen. And to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data, they require users to log in to the mobile BI appli-cation when the device is offline. This thwarts cagey hackers from circum-venting over-the-air security proce-dures (e.g., disk wipes).

Hybrid Web Applications. Con-versely, browser-based mobile BI de-velopers have created workarounds to improve the performance and usability of their applications. For instance, some now cache small amounts of data on the device (e.g., a report) to improve application responsiveness and support offline access.

Others are extending their browser-applications in the short term with a subset of native operating system features that the mobile device’s browser exposes to an application, such as screen input, orientation and resolution. This enables savvy Web developers to build browser-based ap-plications that support native function-ality, such as hand gestures and the ability to toggle between portrait and landscape views when the device is ro-tated. Some browser-based adherents, such as Oracle, go one step further and wrap browser-based content in a na-

tive Apple iOS shell, which supports a raft of additional Apple iOS features, such as prompts, navigation, favorites, alerts, catalogs, search and email. In the long term, these vendors are bet-ting that HTML5 will deliver these same features and more using industry standard HTML, which obviates the need to write native applications to get “native” user experience.

sUMMaRy It’s likely that the future of mobile BI is some form of distributed comput-ing that leverages processing power on the mobile device and remote servers. To compete effectively in the marketplace, mobile BI vendors are quickly embracing hybrid architectures to deliver the best of localized and centralized computing with few of the downsides. But we are still in the early stages in the evolution of mobile BI architectures. Hybrid technology is still maturing and not broadly deployed across all mobile operating systems and devices. So, it behooves your BI team to carefully evaluate a proposed mobile BI offering and understand its underlying architecture and roadmap for development. Your vendor’s archi-tectural choice will have a significant ramification on the level of user adop-tion for the new mobile BI applications and the amount of internal resources you need to allocate to the effort. p

The Who and WhaT of

Mobile bi

archiTecTing for Mobile bi:

clienT, Server, or hybrid?

Mobile bi deviceS:

Which one iS righT for your

coMpany?

The unSpoken challenge

in delivering Mobile bi

june 2011 a complete primer to mobile bi 11

SponSored by

Mobile BI Devices: Which One is Right for Your Company?

majority of busi-ness intelligence (BI) professionals today believe that mobile BI is an

important initiative. If you are one of them, you probably have a few basic questions about how to get started. Perhaps the most basic question is “What devices should we support and how do we provision and manage them on an enterprise scale?”

If you are an IT professional, you won’t like the answer. All of them.

coRnUcopia of devicesUnlike computing devices of yester-year, smartphones and tablets are first and foremost consumer devices that your employees are buying for per-sonal use and then seeking to use for business purposes as well. (To learn how IT organizations are managing personal devices, see “The Unspoken

Challenge in Delivering Mobile BI.”) It would be foolish to make users carry a second, corporate-issued smartphone or tablet, especially if a requesting user happens to be a member of your ex-ecutive team! And each user is going to purchase a different device and mo-bile operating system and expect IT to support it. Clearly, the future of mobile computing is personal and heteroge-neous!

That being said, many companies have already made a commitment to Blackberry smartphones, which are geared to business users. RIM offers an on-premises, enterprise server that integrates the devices with corporate

AThe future of mobilecomputing is personaland heteroge neous!

The Who and WhaT of

Mobile bi

archiTecTing for Mobile bi:

clienT, Server, or hybrid?

Mobile bi deviceS:

Which one iS righT for your

coMpany?

The unSpoken challenge

in delivering Mobile bi

june 2011 a complete primer to mobile bi 12

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email, calendaring and phone systems and enables administrators to provi-sion, configure, secure, troubleshoot and audit all Blackberry devices, whether owned by an individual or is-sued by the company, from a central

Web console. All this is sweet music to an IT manager. (We’ll explore this type of mobile management system below.)

Unfortunately, the Blackberry’s grip on mobile devices, both corporate and personal, is slipping away. Although in the past 10 years, RIM has shipped more mobile devices than any other maker, Apple’s iOS recently pulled ahead with 28.6% market share, com-pared with RIM’s 26.1%, according to Nielsen market research.

Astonishingly, despite Apple’s supe-rior branding, it now is being outpaced by Google’s Android operating system, which runs on a host of devices, often at bargain-basement prices, which probably explains its surge in popular-ity. When you look at sales in the past six months, Google’s Android has a commanding 40.8% share, compared with 26.9% for Apple and 19.2% for RIM. Meanwhile, Microsoft has re-

entered the market with a revamped Windows Phone 7 and a fresh alliance with Nokia. Finally, a host of new tablet manufacturers, including RIM, which launched PlayBook in April, promises to stir up the market further.

The only certainty in the mobile de-vice market right now is change. It’s safe to say that IT departments won’t be able to pick a winner any time soon. Not that they should, because IT no longer can dictate the mobile tech-nology that employees use. The only exception might be line managers or field technicians, whose work environ-ments require ruggedized devices that are resistant to heat, vibration, water, dust or humidity. There, employees will be happy to carry corporate-issued de-vices, if only to preserve the longevity of their own.

Mobile daTa ManageMenT sofTwaReGiven the heterogeneous nature of the mobile device market, IT managers should focus on administrative tools for managing mobile devices and appli-cations rather than the devices them-selves. These toolsets go by the name of mobile data management (MDM) software, not to be confused with master data management software (which is familiar to most BI manag-ers.) Mobile MDM software is used to manage a heterogeneous portfolio of mobile devices and operating systems, often using “over-the-air” connectivity.

The only certainty in the mobile de vice market right now ischange.

The Who and WhaT of

Mobile bi

archiTecTing for Mobile bi:

clienT, Server, or hybrid?

Mobile bi deviceS:

Which one iS righT for your

coMpany?

The unSpoken challenge

in delivering Mobile bi

june 2011 a complete primer to mobile bi 13

SponSored by

Specifically, administrators use MDM software to:

Provision and configure mobile de-pp

vices, including password controls and other settings and parameters. Distribute and configure applications pp

and upgrades based on device prop-erties. Communicate device errors and pp

settings, including applications and security, and to assist in trouble-shooting. Manage applications, including re-pp

stricting the installation of certain applications and removing unwanted applications. Remotely lock and wipe a device of pp

data and applications. Maintain an audit trail of device pp

usage. Set thresholds for usage, for voice, pp

data and SMS.

There is even a standards group, the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), which is specifying standards for managing mobile devices. Called OMA Device Management, the emerging standard specifies support for many of the fea-tures listed above.

There are many providers of hetero-geneous MDM software, not including RIM, whose Blackberry Enterprise only manages Blackberry devices. These include AirWatch LLC, MobileIron, Sybase Inc. and Tangoe Inc. But not all MDM providers offer equivalent

service and features. One BI manager, who is in the process of deploying dashboards to his iPad community, was forced to switch MDM providers after the first product lacked key fea-tures and required users to be involved in part of the device configuration process. “It seemed like the software needed to go through a few more de-velopment cycles before going prime time,” the BI manager said.

sUMMaRy Deploying mobile BI in a fast-changing, heterogeneous mobile device mar-ket is challenging. The first step is to acknowledge that you will have to support multiple mobile operating sys-tems and run your BI applications on employee-owned devices. The second is to invest in MDM software to man-age the distribution, management, security and troubleshooting of those devices and your BI application. p

Mobile MdM software is used to manage a heterogeneous portfolioof mobile devices andoperating systems, oftenusing “over-the-air” connectivity.

The Who and WhaT of

Mobile bi

archiTecTing for Mobile bi:

clienT, Server, or hybrid?

Mobile bi deviceS:

Which one iS righT for your

coMpany?

The unSpoken challenge

in delivering Mobile bi

june 2011 a complete primer to mobile bi 14

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The Unspoken Challenge in Delivering Mobile BI

ince the successful launch of the Apple iPad a year ago, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of

companies seeking to deploy business intelligence (BI) on mobile devices. There are many thorny issues involved in deploying BI, but one that hasn’t been discussed much is whether an organization should deploy corporate mobile applications on personal or company-issued devices.

peRsonal oR coRpoRaTe?This is a tricky issue. Since many employees already have an iPad or other mobile device, it would be dif-ficult to ask them to carry a second one just for business. Since these are consumer gadgets, it’s inevitable that organizations are going to have to ac-commodate the mobile devices that employees already own. But how do

you secure and support personal de-vices that contain a mix of corporate and personal applications and run on different platforms and versions?

The IT department is used to pur-chasing, configuring, securing and maintaining computers for employees. Mobile technology undermines this process and threatens IT administra-tors, whose job is to maintain a stable, secure, error-free compute environ-ment. How can they do that when they don’t own or control the devices?

It’s clear that the IT department is going to have to adapt. It’ll need to purchase corporate devices to sup-port development and testing and give devices to employees who don’t own them already. But IT staffers will also need to install corporate applications on devices that employees already own.

But how are they going to do that? Send them to iTunes or another app store? (Do you really want a corporate

s

The Who and WhaT of

Mobile bi

archiTecTing for Mobile bi:

clienT, Server, or hybrid?

Mobile bi deviceS:

Which one iS righT for your

coMpany?

The unSpoken challenge

in delivering Mobile bi

june 2011 a complete primer to mobile bi 15

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application on a consumer shopping site where people can download the application and uncompile it?) Require them to bring the device to an IT ad-

ministrator who will physically install the mobile application and requisite security software and test the setup to ensure everything works? Or have us-ers install the software over the wire from a corporate mobile application server or from a link sent via email?

losT oR sTolenBut these are small hurdles. The big-gest issue is nontechnical. What hap-pens when a user loses a personal device with a corporate application installed on it?

If your mobile application is browser-based, you only have to worry about data cached on the device that’s there to optimize performance. Ideally, your security software automatically de-letes the cache every hour or so, which minimizes (but doesn’t eliminate) the

risk. If you’ve deployed a native mobile application in which data resides on the device, you’ll not only need to clear the cache, but wipe the hard drive as well, and your security software can perform that remotely. (Of course, this only works if the device is turned on and is connected to the network. So-phisticated thieves will hijack the data without connecting to a network.) In all likelihood, you’ll need to apply all these strategies to secure sensitive corporate information.

Whoops! But there is a potentially bigger issue. What if you wipe a per-sonal device that the business user later finds or recovers? If the device contained valuable personal data (e.g., thousands of dollars worth of music or personal photos), who is liable? Does the company have to reimburse the employee for the lost data? One company I spoke with had mobile us-ers sign legal documents absolving the company of responsibility for lost data, among other things.

There are many things to consider when implementing mobile BI. None of them are insurmountable. But it will take time to work through all the issues. And as always, the soft stuff—the political, social, legal and organiza-tional issues—is often the most chal-lenging of all. p

it’s clear that the iT department is going to have to adapt.

The Who and WhaT of

Mobile bi

archiTecTing for Mobile bi:

clienT, Server, or hybrid?

Mobile bi deviceS:

Which one iS righT for your

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The unSpoken challenge

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About the Authorwayne eckeRson has been a thought leader and con-sultant in the business intel-ligence (BI) field since 1995. He has conducted numer-ous in-depth research stud-

ies and is a noted speaker and blogger. He is the author of the best-selling book Per-formance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitor-ing, and Managing Your Business. For many years, he served as director of education and research at The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI), where he chaired its BI Executive Summit and created a popular BI Maturity Model and Assessment. Wayne is currently director of research at TechTarget and founder of the BI Leadership Forum, a network of BI Directors that exchange ideas and educate the larger BI community. He can be reached at [email protected]. This content originally appeared on Wayne’s World, a BeyeNetwork blog that illuminates the latest thinking about how to deliver insights from business data and celebrates out-of-the-box thinkers and doers in the business intelligence, perfor-mance management and data warehousing fields.

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