SAP and Novell Will Collaborate on Governance, Risk and Compliance

SAP and Novell announced Oct. 13 an expansion of their partnership to cover governance, risk and compliance solutions. That expansion will see a further integration between the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio and Novell security and identity products, aligned to address clients' GRC issues. The collaboration also involves "joint go-to-market activities and alignment of strategic direction related to GRC solutions," SAP said in a news release.

Combining the products offered by both companies will result in end-to-end solutions that provide "reduced risk, lower costs and improved performance" across lines of business, SAP said in the release. Novell Compliance Management Platform extension for SAP environments, Novell Identity Manager and Novell Sentinel will be the first to feature SAP-certified integration with GRC solutions from the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio. Combined, "These solutions unify user provisioning, access control and security event monitoring into a single comprehensive platform," SAP said.

The partnership aims to further simplify the GRC process by "automating the process of discovering and remediating high-risk business problems" and consolidating resource silos. The companies also said the collaboration will improve performance by "automating and enforcing common controls" for the platform.

"The integrated offering from SAP and Novell furthers our commitment to ensure that our customers have the clarity and confidence required to effectively manage risk across their entire business processes and IT environments," Narina Sippy, senior vice president and general manager of GRC Solutions for the SAP BusinessObjects Division, said in a statement. She added, "Our collaboration in GRC provides [SAP and Novell customers] with a significant opportunity to leverage their existing IT investment to deliver greater business value and lower total cost of ownership."

Novell and SAP have partnered globally since March 2008 in multiple product areas.

"We've been working in the GRC space for quite some time, and with this company partnership, we've figured out how we align together," Sippy said in an Oct. 12 interview with eWEEK. "We're executing on something we've spent the better part of the last year on."

SAP has added new applications to its lineup throughout 2009, perhaps most notably SAP Business Suite 7 in July. That platform can be deployed either in its entirety or in specific modules: SAP ERP, SAP CRM, SAP Supplier Relationship Management, SAP Supply Chain Management and SAP Product Lifestyle Management.

In June, SAP also introduced two applications designed to aid enterprise compliance with government regulations: SAP BusinessObjects Risk Management and SAP BusinessObjects Process Control, designed to manage risk and ensure placement of proper internal controls. The software automates risk monitoring and regulation compliance, which SAP said would allow issues such as manufacturing line quality control to be quickly identified and addressed.