The Microsoft® Data Warehouse Toolkit: With SQL Server™ 2005 and the Microsoft® Business Intelligence Toolset

Chapter 12. Security

Balancing safety and opportunity

Security is another one of those black holes of the DW/BI system. It seems straightforward at first glance, but often ends up being more complicated, and using more resources, than originally planned.

As you may recall, Microsoft was hit hard in 2002-2004 by security breaches and gaffes. We don't need to replay those events. But if you're considering using Microsoft technology to manage your DW/BI system—and if you've reached Chapter 12 you probably are—you should understand that these events had a huge impact on Microsoft and SQL Server. We can, and often do, poke fun at Microsoft. But they're more serious than ever about security. If you're also serious about security, and take the necessary steps to educate yourself, keep up-to-date on security bulletins and software updates, and design your system to minimize your attack surface, you'll be in a good position to run a safe system. Microsoft throws so much information and so many security options at you that the greatest risk may be that you'll give up out of frustration and confusion. We hope this chapter helps by highlighting the most important issues for a DW/BI system.

You can minimize the cost and risk of implementing security by—yes!—writing a security plan. That plan should have a section for securing the environment, including the hardware and operating system; a plan for securing the operations and administration of the system; and a plan for securing data. No security ...