Managing Server Access for SAS Mobile BI Users

Tablets, phablets, smartphones.

These mobile devices not only travel to different corners of the earth with their owners; they participate in certain adventures that can result in an unexpected turn of events.

Thanks to their mobility, these devices can be misplaced. And they could be found later. In rare cases, they can get lost. In the event that a user is separated from his or her mobile device, there are security mechanisms in place for protecting access to your organization’s server where data and reports reside.

Whether mobile devices accompany their SAS Mobile BI 7.33 users to the Himalayas or to the Sahara Desert, they certainly need to be tracked and managed by administrators. In my last blog, I talked about how an app-specific passcode protects access to the SAS Mobile BI app by preventing anyone other than the SAS Mobile BI user from accessing the app on the mobile device. Now, let’s take a look at how your administrators manage and protect access from the SAS Mobile BI app on your devices to connect to servers in your organization.

The SAS Visual Analytics 7.3 suite of applications includes the Administrator application with the Mobile Devices tab. The Mobile Devices tab is somewhat like an air traffic control system for an airport. Just as airplanes that land and take off are monitored and managed at the air traffic control tower by personnel, mobile devices that connect to your organization’s server with the SAS Mobile BI app are monitored and managed in the Administrator application’s Mobile Devices tab.

SAS Visual Analytics Administrator runs on the same server where your SAS Visual Analytics reports are stored and accessed. It maintains a logon history that informs your administrator details regarding mobile devices that logged on or attempted to log on to the server from the SAS Mobile BI app. For example, a timestamp indicates when a device connected to the server. A management history equips administrators with data on mobile devices that were whitelisted, blacklisted, or removed from either the whitelist or the blacklist.

Managing Mobile Devices

Regardless of how many mobile devices are installed with the SAS Mobile BI app, security administration is required for every device that accesses data and reports on the server. Every mobile device has a unique identifier, and this unique identifier is used by SAS Visual Analytics Administrator to determine if the device is allowed to access the server.

To control mobile devices’ access to your organization’s server, your administrator manages server access by implementing either a whitelist or a blacklist from the server. By default, blacklisting is enforced on servers that are accessed by the SAS Mobile BI app.

Inclusion Approach to Managing Devices

The whitelist scenario follows the inclusion approach. By default, you cannot connect to the server via SAS Mobile BI until your device ID is added to the whitelist by your administrator. If the unique device ID is added to the whitelist by your administrator, you can use the device to subscribe, view, and interact with SAS Visual Analytics reports (via the SAS Mobile BI app).

Exclusion Approach to Managing Devices

In the blacklist scenario, it is the exclusion approach. By default, everyone can connect to the server from SAS Mobile BI on their mobile devices unless their device IDs are added to the blacklist by the administrator. Any device whose unique device ID is not added to the blacklist can connect to the server from the SAS Mobile BI app. For instance, if you lost your mobile device, your administrator can go to the Logon History, select the device (listed by device ID, user name etc), and add it to the blacklist. Then, you cannot use the device to log on to the server from the app.

The Easy Way to Switch from Blacklisting to Whitelisting

By default, blacklisting is enforced on the server that is accessed by the SAS Mobile BI app, and the viewerservices.enable.whitelist.support configuration property in SAS Management Console (SAS Configuration Manager for SAS Visual Analytics Transport Service) is set to false. If you are an administrator, and wish to switch from blacklisting to whitelisting, the easiest way to do it is to select whitelisting in the Administrator’s Mobile Devices tab and add the device IDs to the whitelist. Then, the viewerservices.enable.whitelist.support configuration property in SAS Management Console is automatically updated and set to true. This is an easier method for switching from blacklisting to whitelisting because it does not require a restarting of the server. If you were to go to SAS Management Console first and set the viewerservices.enable.whitelist.support configuration property to true, this action requires you to restart the server.

Request to Add Devices to a Whitelist

There are a couple of different ways that your administrator can obtain and add device IDs to a whitelist. If the unique device ID is already known to your administrator, he or she can easily add it to the whitelist in the Administrator application’s Mobile Devices tab. Alternatively, if you happen to install SAS Mobile BI app on a new mobile device that is not being managed from the server, the app can take you to your email with template text that includes your mobile device ID – just send that email to your administrator requesting server access from your mobile device.

Suspending or Allowing Server Access from the App

Now here is my most favorite part of device management. Access from SAS Mobile BI to the server, as we have just noted, is determined by either whitelist or blacklist management of devices, not by user accounts. This approach extends flexibility for SAS Mobile BI users. For example, I have an iPhone and a Galaxy Tab Pro tablet – I have SAS Mobile BI app on both devices, and I use both of them to access the server, subscribe to SAS Visual Analytics reports, view, and interact with them. If I happen to misplace my Galaxy Tab Pro tablet and can’t seem to find it, I notify my administrator so that server access from the app on this device can be removed.

My administrator, who follows the whitelist approach, removes my Galaxy Tab Pro’s unique device ID from the whitelist. Then, I can no longer use the SAS Mobile BI app on this device to log on to our server and subscribe to SAS Visual Analytics reports. However, I can continue to use my iPhone (which has remained in the whitelist) to log on to the server, subscribe, view and interact with reports on the server.

Few days later, I find my misplaced Galaxy Tab Pro tablet. I email my administrator indicating that the device is back in my possession. My administrator adds the unique device ID for my Galaxy Tab Pro back to the server’s whitelist. Voila – I am back in business, using SAS Mobile BI to connect to the server from my Android tablet.

In a Nutshell

There are several mechanisms available for securing the SAS Mobile BI app and access to your organization’s servers is one of them. In my next blog, we will take a look at how tethering works to protect data access for SAS Visual Analytics reports from the SAS Mobile BI app.

Managing Server Access for SAS Mobile BI Users was published on SAS Users.