Authentication Designs for P4S 2007

The user experiences that you can deliver using Business Analytics Add-On for SharePoint (P4S) 2007 depend on your SharePoint environment and how SharePoint and Business Analytics Servers are deployed. The factors that determine an authentication architecture include:

With the Single Sign-On Service (MOSS SSO) to provide an initial challenge with single sign-on experience for P4S users. Other factors in your environment also play a part in supporting single sign-on.

The Single Sign-On Service stores user credentials for external applications, such as the Business Analytics Business Analytics Server, accessed from SharePoint. User credentials are organized by target application, also known as an SSO Application Name, allowing the Single Sign-On Service to handle credentials for different applications. You can store user credentials under one SSO Application name to provide credentials that several Business Analytics Servers share, allowing users to access mashups and apps from those Business Analytics Servers seamlessly, or keep credentials for some Business Analytics Servers separate using different SSO Application Names.

Without the Single Sign-On Service: this also can support an initial challenge experience depending on other factors in your SharePoint environment.

Note:

P4S is not currently compatible with third-party single sign-on solutions, such as Netegrity SiteMiner, that are agent-based. If your SharePoint environment uses a third-party SSO solution, users may work in Business Analytics Hub with SharePoint to create mashables, mashups and apps. However, users cannot use P4S actions in SharePoint and cannot publish mashups or apps to SharePoint.

SharePoint and Business Analytics Business Analytics Server Domains: how you deploy Business Analytics Servers in your SharePoint environments affects the choices for authentication. If single sign-on is not possible, deploying SharePoint servers and Business Analytics Servers in the same domains enables the use of cookies to simplify authentication.

The combination of these factors produce three authentication architectures that you can use. The following table summarizes which architectures can be applied to specific environments and the resulting user experience:

Authentication Architecture	MOSS + SSO Service	MOSS / No SSSO Service	SharePoint / Business Analytics Server in Same Domains	SharePoint / Business Analytics Server in Different Domains	User Experience
SSO + Token Authentication					Initial challenge
SSO + Cookie Authentication					Initial challenge
No SSO, Manual Authentication					All challenges