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CA Business Intelligence

(Optional) CA Business Intelligence is a set of reporting and analytic software that various CA products use for the purposes of presenting information and supporting business decisions. CA products use CA Business Intelligence to integrate, analyze, and then present, through various reporting options, information required for effective enterprise IT management.

Included in CA Business Intelligence is BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 SP3, a complete suite of information management, reporting, and query and analysis tools. CA Business Intelligence installs BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 SP3 as a stand–alone component. In this guide, this stand–alone component is referred to as the Report Server. Installing the Report Server is a separate step within the overall SiteMinder installation process. Installing the Report Server separately from SiteMinder–specific components lets other CA products share the same Business Intelligence Services.

The Report Server compiles reports to help you analyze your SiteMinder environment. The purpose of this component it to create the following types of reports:

• Audit
• Policy analysis

The Report Server communicates with the following components to compile reports:

• The Central Management Server (CMS) database (report database)
• An Administrative UI
• A Policy Server
• A SiteMinder audit database

More information:

Documentation Roadmap

SiteMinder Audit Database

(Optional) By default, the Policy Server writes audit events to a text file, which is known as the Policy Server log. The purpose of audit logs is to track information about all user activity, including:

• All successful authentications
• All failed authentications
• All successful authorization attempts
• All failed authorization attempts
• All administrative login attempts
• All administrative actions, such as changes to administrator passwords, the creation of policy store objects, and changes to policy store objects

However, you can configure a stand–alone SiteMinder audit database (audit database). When deciding where to store audit events, consider that:

• The Report Server requires a connection to an audit database to create audit–based reports. The Report Server cannot create audit–based reports from a Policy Server log written to a text file.
• Storing audit logs to a database is more secure than logging the information to a text file.
• If supported, a policy store can also function as an audit database.

Note: For more information about configuring an audit database, see the documentation roadmap.

More information:

Documentation Roadmap

SiteMinder Agents

(Required) A SiteMinder Agent can reside on a web server, a J2EE application server, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, or custom application. An Agent acts as the Policy Enforcement Point (PEP), intercepting user requests for resources and communicating with a Policy Server to determine if the resource is protected.

If the resource is not protected, the Agent allows access. If the resource is protected, the Agent continues to communicate with the Policy Server to authenticate and authorize users. A successful authorization prompts the Agent to let the resource request proceed to the server. Agents also:

• Provide information to web applications to enable content personalization
• Cache information about authenticated users and protected resources to allow quicker access to resources
• Enable single sign–on (SSO)

More information:

Documentation Roadmap