Lumira Server for the Trusted SAP BI Platform

In our earlier post, The  Future of Web Intelligence and Lumira Interoperability, we talked about  Lumira as a data discovery and exploration tool which allowed users to acquire,  cleanse and manipulate non-enterprise data, and to build compelling  visualizations using a user-friendly interface. Using non-trusted data sources  sounds like a negative, but can often be a useful technique for outside-the-box  data discovery and “what-if” visualizations.

When Lumira Server for  the BI Platform was released in May 2015 as part of Lumira 1.25, SAP BI  customer reaction was quite positive, and Adrian Westmoreland told us:

The early feedback  was overwhelming, as many customers wanted to get their hands on Lumira Server  to see what it can do, and how they can roll it out.

Lumira Server for the  BI Platform brings a new dimension to the Lumira story. On top of being a  user-friendly means of creating compelling visualizations from personal data  sources, Lumira is now also an integral part of not only a trusted data platform,  but also a fully governed content platform, including all the benefits that  entails.

What Is a Trusted Data Platform?

Data trust is very  high when it has entered the BI domain and is consumed via the semantic layer,  which centralizes well understood processes and data governance practices that  ensure its completeness and quality. It is these processes and practices make  SAP BusinessObjects a trusted data platform, and that provides a single version  of the truth, the guarantee that all members of the enterprise are on the same  page and making decisions consistent with their shared view of the data.

As Adrian Westmoreland told us, trusted  data sources on a trusted data platform confers advantages:

Trusted data  discovery is nothing new to the SAP BI platform, but we have now brought it to  Lumira. Your Lumira projects now inherit all of the trust inherent in the  platform. As we move forward, Lumira takes advantage of all of the core functionality  of the BI platform.

Working with non-trusted data is extremely  important for outside-the-box analysis and very useful in the search for new  opportunities, but it is even more useful if you can combine it with the  trusted data discovery of the BI platform. Lumira Server for the BI Platform  accomplishes this synthesis of trusted and non-trusted: it allows IT and line  of business analysts to work together to combine non-trusted with trusted data discovery.

Using the Trust Inherent in the BI  Platform

Lumira Server for the  BI Platform is easy to adopt as there are no additional  components required to deploy it. It’s a straightforward add-on. As Adrian  says:

The architecture  is very similar to all of the other pieces on the BI platform. The user  interface and workflows will be very familiar to BI users, making it very easy  to adopt.

Once adopted, the solution is not only easy  to use, but easy to support. Ty Miller notes that the Lumira Server add-on has  married the IT focus and the business focus. In most organizations, there are  years of IT experience managing the BI platform.

Because the  approach to this new add-on is so familiar, IT personnel experienced with the  BI platform can implement it in their sleep. They are very comfortable with the  technology and its security. For business users, it’s a new self-service  experience. We have effectively combined easy-to-use data discovery with  trusted, enterprise BI, creating trusted data discovery. I am not aware of any  other BI vendor that has been able to do that yet. This really is the first  example of what trusted data discovery can look like.

The Lumira add-on enables a closer and better dialog with the IT user community. The  business user community now has a tool that IT can support. The IT community,  particularly administrators and designers, now have a solution they are  comfortable supporting, because they are comfortable and secure with the  underlying platform.

The ability to support  and manage the add-on is one of the things that makes a data discovery solution  a trusted data discovery solution. On the BI platform, Lumira benefits from all  of the content security, governance, and management capabilities that are  inherent to SAP BusinessObjects.  Because  of this, Lumira can take advantage of the platform’s Life Cycle Management  capabilities, while providing an avenue for the development of user-driven  content to complement professionally authored content from solutions such as  Design Studio and Web Intelligence. As Ty told us:

We want to create  the ability to integrate user-driven BI and professionally authored BI, and one  of the ways to do that is through the concept of open document capabilities.  Because Lumira is now on the BI platform, we can look at ways to use open  document technology to allow professionally authored content and user-authored  content to connect with each other and enable moving from one view of the data  to another.

The adoption of Lumira  Server for the BI Platform is also encouraged by the ease with which you can  migrate content from the desktop and Team Server environments to a trusted BI  platform by simply republishing the content in the server-based environment.

In an upcoming post,  we will look at Lumira Server for the BI  Platform and BW Connectivity.