Data security

This section describes data security concepts related to connecting to an OLAP cube.

Protecting the OLAP cube

As long as only the Accelerator needs to communicate with the client, it is highly recommended to restrict any external access to the OLAP cube. In that case, access to the cube will be restricted to only the local server. This increases security and protects against external threats including:

• Password cracking
• Unauthorized external access to the OLAP cube
• Data theft

If the SSAS server and the Accelerator are located on different servers, it is necessary to open a port on the SSAS server for the Accelerator.

Client-side data security

To ensure client-side data security, it’s impossible to read data from the server without using Flexmonster Pivot. Each response/request contains a checksum for the packets. If this checksum is invalid, an error message is shown instead of the data.

HTTPS configuration

Even with the additional security between the Accelerator and Flexmonster Pivot, using the HTTP protocol is unsafe as it does not encrypt the data. HTTPS encrypts the data and protects it from inspection upon interception. Flexmonster Accelerator supports HTTPS and it is highly recommended that you use it instead of HTTP. For more details refer to the configuration tutorial.