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Beginning August 2024, IBM Planning Analytics on Cloud, PAoC, will begin replacing IBM Secure Gateway with IBM Satellite. The business problem that the Secure Gateway and Satellite tools solve is one of data security, specifically how to protect data in a hybrid environment with data in-transit between public and private cloud computing resources. Businesses have been shifting towards utilizing cloud resources like PAoC for a while now, but they still have significant local data, such as data warehouses and ERP systems in their own physical data centers or private clouds. The attractive benefits that caused the creation of PAoC, a cloud-hosted Platform as a Service (PaaS), meant that a safe and secure way of supplying data to PAoC needed to be found. IBM had available in its toolbox the Secure Gateway platform that creates encrypted tunnels between IBM Cloud Secure Gateway servers and private-cloud/on-premises data resources possessed by its customers. With Secure Gateway, data can safely flow data bi-directionally, keeping secure the “crown jewels” of financial data for the enterprise.

In the ever-evolving world of cloud-based analytics, staying updated with the latest advancements is crucial. We are excited to announce an important update for IBM Planning Analytics on Cloud (PA Cloud) users. As of mid-September 2024, the Rich Tier Desktop will no longer be accessible. This transition marks a significant step towards improving user experience by integrating key functionalities into the modern Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW).

PAW on Windows

Currently, IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) can be run on Windows 2016 Server, Windows 2019 Server, and Linux. PAW is designed to run in a containerized software management engine, which provides many benefits, such as making it easier to deploy consistently across a variety of operating systems. Support for PAW in Windows Servers was made possible when Microsoft ported the open source, free, Docker containerization platform from Linux over to Windows. Microsoft has considered Docker on Windows a “feature”, and access to it has been covered by a client’s regular Microsoft server licensing agreement. Essentially Docker on Windows has been free for customers because they are already paying for the server OS in a bundle from Microsoft. Microsoft has included support for Docker too, which was a bargain of sorts for customers. This licensing and support structure is about to fundamentally change.

IBM produces a great deal of information for clients and business partners to help support the ongoing use of Planning Analytics (PA). One communication tool they have is based on subscribing by product to a list of possible notifications. For example, if you are a PA administrator, you may find the general “News” notifications useful, while someone who provides IT support for the PA platform may be most interested in the “Downloads & Drivers” notifications. 

Installing IBM® Planning Analytics for Excel just got a lot simpler. The new single XLL file for using IBM Planning Analytics for Excel (PAfE) has cleared up a lot of installation issues by altogether eliminating the software installation package. As of PAfE 2.0.65, a single XLL file in either 32-bit or 64-Bit Excel flavors can be downloaded from IBM Fix Central or from

To all PA Cloud customers: