eqm vs lcm comparison

NOAD EQM vs. BusinessObjects Life Cycle ManagerProduct Comparison Matrix

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Life Cycle Management for Business Objects XI

Life cycle management typically refers to the management of each phase of a product's life– creation, modification, and ultimately retirement.

Business Objects claims a similar approach to your information management life cycle withLife Cycle Manager. Instead they offer a plug-in which interfaces with their Business ObjectsXI 3.1 platform and closely mirrors typical Business Objects environments (Development,Testing and Production).

Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 compliance states that change control procedures should coverall aspects of the change cycle, including initiation, monitoring, testing, and approval, aswell as migration of the appropriately approved change into the production environment.This process also must be appropriately secured so that personnel in this function cannot,without detection, make inappropriate changes to the program or the related data. Thechange process must be comprehensive in nature, considering all possible implications ofthe changes, such as system interfaces, data and error-checking routines, application secu-rity changes, management reporting, etc.*

As a Technology Partner of Business Objects for the past decade, NOAD is recognized as theleader in life cycle management for BusinessObjects. As such, we've analyzed the function-ality of Business Objects' Life Cycle Manager plug-in. Our results have concluded thatBusiness Objects' Life Cycle Manager is useful as an enhancement on their import wizard,but highly deficient in providing adequate information quality assurances that competitiveenterprises demand in today's world of compliance and regulations.

Business Objects' Life Cycle Manager does not offer the level of Change Management,Deployment Automation, User Activity Monitoring, and Compliance Management needed tomanage change within today's complex BI deployments. That's why high-performing enter-prises, like JP Morgan Chase, GE, Universal Music Group, and the US Air force keep turningto NOAD EQM for the ultimate in change, quality and compliance management.

*Guide to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act: Managing Application Risks and Controlsby Protivity - Independent Risk Consulting

This comparison document clearly shows that Business Objects' Life Cycle Manager is afree plug-in and not an adequate life cycle management solution for today's complex BIenvironments.

Be Version Ensured

How can you make sure you are managing the correct version of your objects within yourBusinessObjects environment? What changes have been made? Which version has beendeployed to the applicable environments?

Stringent version control of objects is a "must-have" for enterprise-level life cycle manage-ment, because it ensures your "single version of the truth". Version accuracy and account-ability must be enforced and automatic for any life cycle management system to claim it is"enterprise-level".

Business Objects claims Life Cycle Manager allows you to manage different versions of BIresources, but the truth is that Version Control is not even an integrated part of the BusinessObjects solution. In fact, Business Objects Life Cycle Manager uses a free open-source ver-sion control system called Subversion. This means that Version Control with Life CycleManager is NOT AUTOMATED and, more importantly NOT ENFORCED - in fact it is a manu-al process which can easily be circumvented. With Life Cycle Manager, users can deployitems to the next or even an environment without storing them in the Version ManagementSystem. This means you cannot be sure that the version of an item in your production envi-ronment is stored in your Version Management system. This creates gaps in your life cycleaudit trail and can compromise compliance.

With Business Objects, life cycle management starts in the deployment process, and it is notintegrated in the development process. Regulations describe that true life cycle manage-ment begins with the creation and development of an item. NOAD EQM enforces version

control by including it from the beginning – the development cycle. With NOAD EQM devel-opers are required to check-in an item before deploying it to development, and the processis simple and completely automated. This guarantees all changes are correctly versionedand stored within NOAD EQM, provides a complete audit trail, and ensures full compliance.

Be tested and approved

Promoting items across different environments is easily done with Life Cycle Manager, butLife Cycle Manager does NOT guarantee the item has been tested and/or approved nor areyou informed on specific details on who, when, what and why.

NOAD EQM enforces and ensures promotion of approved items in a controlled manner as anessential part of life cycle management, because promoting untested or unapproved itemscan yield catastrophic results, loss of revenues, and compromise compliance. That's whyNOAD EQM includes a testing and approval layer with customizable workflows that enforceusers to complete required procedures before an item can be promoted to the next environ-ment. NOAD EQM monitors each step, providing a complete audit trail to provide completeaccountability and compliance, resulting in confidence and control.

Be Compliant

Enforced, accountable and reliable procedures are the only way to ensure compliance. NOADEQM eliminates error-causing manual processes by automating and monitoring all activity.This ensures all required processes are executed in complete compliance and according topredefined procedures.

Considering local and federal laws, Compliance Management is a must in today's businessenvironment. Even small errors can compromise compliance, which typically results in cost-ly legal complications or worse.

BusinessObjects' Life Cycle Manager's processes include several voluntary manual steps,many of which could easily compromise compliance and accountability. If you cannot pro-vide a complete audit trail of every item within your LCM you are NOT compliant!

Be in Control

NOAD EQM focuses on complete Enterprise Platform Management ensuring clarity and con-trol to the entire platform. BusinessObjects’ Life Cycle Manager only focuses on promotingitems between environments. The result – only NOAD EQM gives you complete "cradle tograve" control of your life cycle management.

The following pages provide an overview of the differences between the two solutions, help-ing you to choose the right solution for you.

Comparison Matrix

Change Management Functionality

Provide integrated version control NO YES

Provide version control on generic items (e.g Word, Excel, SQL scripts, etc) NO YES

Provide Secured Check-in/out NO YES

Manage Project independent of CMS structure NO YES

Integrated deployment from Version Control NO YES

Develop docs on static production universe version while others are changing the universe NO YES

Mechanism to quickly load large numbers of documents YES YES

Business ObjectsLife Cycle Manger NOAD EQM

Deployment Control Functionality

Separated Environments transparent to BO repositories NO YES

Separated Environments in one BO CMS NO YES

Transfer non Business Objects items NO YES

Transfer to non Business Objects repositories NO YES

Customizable workflows per environment NO YES

Ensure only approved items are transferred NO YES

Enforce usage of deployment procedure NO YES

Deployment paths eliminating wrong transfers NO YES

Synchronize /Rebuild BO repository YES YES

Transfer to multiple environments in one action YES YES

Set/Change secured connection during transfer YES YES

Wizard based Transfer YES YES

Multi Level secured roll-back NO YES

Allow different structures (folders, connections, categories, etc) across CMSes NO YES


Analysis

Deliver detailed Universe difference analysis on all possible differences(objects, conditions, joins, contexts etc.) NO YES

Deliver detailed Document difference report NO YES

Delivers Cascaded Object impact analysis NO YES

Delivers Health Check analysis NO YES

Delivers relation analysis report between universes and reports NO YES

Delivers end-to-end audit trail NO YES

Instant relationship between documents and universes NO YES

Detailed audit reports to help you increase the quality of universes and documents NO YES

Provide instant insight on deployed versions NO YES

Security

Segregation of duties NO YES

Security layer with authorization per Development NO YES

Acceptance or Production Environment NO YES

Role based security NO YES

Integrates with Business Objects Security YES YES

Compliance Management

Change history reports NO YES

Full end-to-end audit report NO YES

Auditability of whole environment from single user interface NO YES




Architecture

Integrated solution (all functions in one product) NO YES

Fully integrated with BO repositories YES YES

Update to Business Objects repository are performed through BO approved technology YES YES

Supports Business Objects XIR2 NO YES

Supports Business Objects XIR3 YES YES

Supports Business Objects CMS on UNIX YES YES

Product supports multiple repositories in different geographical locations YES YES

All tasks managed from a centralized installation NO YES

Product enables users to transfer Documents and Universes into aproduction environment without having physical access to any production machine NO YES

No access to Business Objects Repository required through “development tools”(like Designer or Deski) to promote or manage universes and reports NO YES

The product always gives you a clear overview of what's inside each repository NO YES


About NOAD

Founded in 2000, NOAD is the leading provider of quality assurance solutions that empowerenterprises to manage business Intelligence (BI) secured, guaranteed and effective.

With more than 200 customers in over 19 countries and across all industry sectors we haveestablished a blue-chip, worldwide customer base including JP Morgan Chase, GE,Universal Music Group, the US Air force and more. NOAD has dual headquarters in theNetherlands and New York, and works with more than 30 worldwide partners and resellerswith over 100 certified field-support professionals.

Our Offering

Based on our beliefs that in today's world having accurate and controlled BI systems is a"must have", not a "nice to have", we have developed EQM, a unique software solutiondesigned to help organizations effectively monitor, maintain and manage the accuracy andintegrity of their BI systems.

Our Beliefs

While Business Intelligence is being commoditized, information management is undergreater scrutiny within organizations of all sizes, therefore the need to systematically eval-uate and enforce IT policy has become a fact of life. Increased capabilities and adoption ofBusiness Intelligence creates more use, more change and more chaos. Now, more thanever, change control has become fundamental to IT control. Without strong change controlson Business Intelligence, companies' will experience:

• Poor audit performance due to control deficiencies;

• Service outages, unplanned work, and delayed delivery of strategic projects resultingfrom unauthorized and undocumented changes;

• Increased risk and lack of assurance surrounding system security and data integrity

• Increased audit cost and scope.

We want to elevate BI infrastructure and applications to the next level. The evolution ofBusiness Intelligence (BI) technology from a tactical tool to one of mission criticalitydemands expedited deployment processes, reduced deployment costs, complete compli-ance, and maximized ROI. That's why NOAD EQM goes beyond life cycle management anddelivers solutions that address all aspects of a healthy BI infrastructure, including ChangeManagement, Deployment Automation, User Activity Monitoring, and ComplianceManagement.

International Headquarters

NOAD Americas, Inc.

267 Fifth Avenue, Suite 908 Phone: +1.212.265.6466New York, NY 10016 Fax: +1.212.265.6402

Email: [email protected]

European Headquarters

NOAD Business Intelligence

Ambachtsweg 4 D-bis Phone: +31 343 43 73 343953 BZ Maarsbergen Fax: +31 343 43 73 51

Email: [email protected]