An exclusive first look at new GRC Analytics prototype and more: my Tuesday in Orlando

[Former Member]

My day at ASUG2012 and SAPPHIRENow started in the ASUG Lounge area, chatting with fellow ASUG volunteers Ken Hartman and Jennifer Cofer about plans for the day at the conference. Soon it was time for the SAP keynote. For me, the takeaway from remarks by SAP co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe was his near term future vision where “everything will be mobile, everything will be in the cloud, and everything will be in memory.” It will be interesting seeing if it really happens within 5 years as he predicted.

The first presentation I heard today was by my ASUG volunteer colleague Greg Capps and my PwC colleague Matt Gantner,  COCA-COLA: Standardization and Optimization of SAP Security Through the Use of SAP GRC Access Controls. Greg and Matt shared great insights and lessons learned from Coca-Cola’s  role rationalization and security redesign project. Greg stated that the #1 thing that enabled success in this effort was the individual testing of the tcodes to ensure that they worked standalone and not by inheritance.

I had lunch with Nicky Budd-Thanos from Netbase. She described their social media analytics solution that sounded very intriguing. I hope to get by their booth to see it in action.

After lunch I headed to the Analytics area of the show floor where I was able to track down Chris Radkowski from SAP Labs and Jochen Thierer from SAP AG, who gave me an exclusive interview and demo of a brand new prototype, GRC Analytics. This coming solution will provide new, never-before-possible GRC content powered by SAP HANA. GRC Analytics will use GRC data replicated onto the HANA box via real time Sybase replication.  Jochen emphasized that this is not just the same old GRC reports running faster; this is brand new reporting providing new levels of intelligence about your security and risks. I was very excited to see the prototypes for the Identity Analytics reporting that Chris discussed in his presentation yesterday which I mentioned in my blog post last night. I must mention that this prototype is under development with a targeted shipment planned for Q4 2012, but as always, delivery dates are subject to change, so readers are reminded to not make a purchase decision based on that target date.

The next presentation I attended was title Implementing BI Security Properly with Tip and Tricks, presented by Rob Bishop of group: basis. Rob offered a good basic overview of tools for administering BW security as well as tips and tricks.  I found it to be a good presentation for anyone new to BW security or anyone in need of a refresher on BW security concepts such as analysis authorizations.

The last presentation I attended today was given by another of my PwC colleagues, Ray Mastre, SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) Security: A Guide For Auditors. For those not entirely fluent in the language of  SAP security, this presentation offered an overview of basic SAP security concepts, as well as audit specific information such as common security pitfalls that can lead to audit issues and areas to review. I found it to be a good presentation for giving auditors and others the language to discuss security with their SAP security admins.

Last but not least, I stopped by the Mentor Wrap-up session in the ASUG Lounge to join my SAP Mentors colleagues in a discussion of highlights from our day.

Tonight I am headed to a private reception, so I am looking forward to another evening of networking and camaraderie. Implementing BI Security Properly with Tip and Tricks