IBM Cognos provides a host of analytical features that bring visibility to enterprise data. The environment is rich in features and has multiple security control points for access to Content and Data. Content refers to the 170+ objects in the portal which may be secured. Data refers to security across IBM Framework Manager, TM1, and Transformer. 

Security 4X (S4X) is a modular platform of governance and administration capabilities that simplify and automate these functions for IBM Cognos:

• Content Security – Use S4X Policies to secure and manage access to Cognos content for thousands of users across many different business teams
• Data Security – For customers who want to ensure that users only see data they should, S4X will manage auditable filter rules for thousands of users across Data Modules, Packages, Power Cubes and Planning Analytics Servers
• License Compliance – S4X provides all reporting and counting needed for auditing and compliance to ensure you are fully aligned with your license contracts.
  
  

Cognos has always supported a host of authentication providers. The challenge in administering Cognos is not authentication, but rather, authorization. Authorization involves configuring security for Content, Data, managing thousands of groups, users, and their associated memberships. Security 4X is a purpose-built application that will help your team address Content and Data Security challenges through control, automation, and audit in several important areas: 

• Day-to-day authorizations – Daily security adds and changes to groups and group memberships costs an enterprise time and money. Security 4X streamlines the authorization process.
• Tier-to-tier and platform-to-platform transitions – Migrating security from one platform to another, undergoing a reorganization, and testing security changes en masse is complex. Security 4X provides a suite of tools that allow you to broadly manage these types of changes.
• Delegate Administration – Security 4X has a web-based administration portal, called “WebGrant”, that allows IT to delegate some administrative authority to business administrators who can independently add and remove users from groups. WebGrant also comes with its own audit reports to provide visibility and traceability of all membership changes.