There are several options you can use to implement and optimize authentication between your SharePoint installation and Business Analytics Business Analytics Servers. This allows you to set up an appropriate level of security and user experience when your environment has bi-directional authentication between SharePoint and one or more Business Analytics Servers.

The challenge for user authentication with Business Analytics Add-On for SharePoint (P4S) 2010 is that users, who are already authenticated in SharePoint, must also authenticate with one or more Business Analytics Servers as seamlessly as possible. For the best user experience, a user should only be required to login to a system once and gain authorization to remote systems using their current identity.

To define the appropriate plan for authentication, you must consider the various User Authentication Experiences for P4S 2010 and Authentication Designs for P4S 2010 based on your SharePoint environment.