One interesting aspect in Oracle’s lawsuit against SAP is how they apparently noticed that something was wrong:
Intelligent Enterprise: “Ultimately, Oracle caught on to the unusual volume of requests…. Oracle says an investigation into huge traffic spikes on its Customer Connection servers…”
Oracle’s complaint document: “In late November 2006, there occurred unusually heavy download activity on Oracle’s password-protected customer support website…”
“More than 10,000 illicit downloads from Customer Connection between September 2006 and January 2007, with indications that this number may go significantly higher if traced further back in time.”
In other words, it seems Oracle only noticed the problem because of network spikes, not because of any regular proactive BI analysis of support usage, and BI was only used after they noticed a problem.
As I noted in a previous post, BI is unfortunately often considered an afterthought of operational systems. It should be considered an integral part of enterprise security, with ongoing, regular analysis of all aspects of network behaviour.