TARGIT Cloud Overview

What is TARGIT Cloud? And why?

TARGIT Cloud is TARGIT as you know it. The difference is, of course, that TARGIT Cloud is installed and is running as a service on online Cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure - as opposed to the traditional on-premise installations of TARGIT.

Offering TARGIT as a Cloud service brings many advantages to you as the TARGIT user:

• No need to invest in on-premise hardware to run TARGIT
• No need for in-house experts to handle the IT infrastructure
• The TARGIT solution is much more flexible: As your organisation grows and your demand for data grows, the cloud environment will automatically upscale with the necessary resources, e.g., with regard to CPUs and/or RAM
• Continuous access to latest functions and features
• Always on par with bug fixes and new versions
• Access to stable, secure and scalable environment​

TARGIT Cloud platform and architecture

The preferred cloud platform for TARGIT is Microsoft Azure. The architecture of a TARGIT Cloud installation can be pictured like this:

Note that your Data Warehouses can be located in many different places:

• Data Warehouse on the same cloud platform as the TARGIT Server. The TARGIT server will be able to connect to a Data Warehouse on the same cloud platform.
• Data Warehouse on another cloud platform. The TARGIT server will be able to connect to a Data Warehouse on another cloud platform.
• Data Warehouse On-premise. The TARGIT server will be able to connect to a Data Warehouse that you keep on-premise. Either directly via Firewall openings, directly via OLAP over HTTP or indirectly through the TARGIT Gateway.

So, when migrating from an on-premise solution to a TARGIT Cloud solution, you can do this in steps, if you prefer. First, you may choose to get the TARGIT Server in the cloud, while keeping your Data Warehouse on-premise. Later, you may choose to move the Data Warehouse into the cloud as well.

TARGIT Cloud - getting started

As a new TARGIT customer, with no prior TARGIT installations, getting access to a TARGIT Cloud environment is easy:

1. Obtain a Cloud license by contacting TARGIT. Contact your Account Manager, or use this Contact form: https://www.targit.com/why-targit/contact
2. Go to https://targit.cloud to create a new account. One account can administrate multiple tenants (production, test, etc.). Read more: TARGIT Cloud Control Panel
3. Create a new Tenant from the Cloud Control Panel. Read more: TARGIT Cloud Control Panel. You will need the license at this point. 
4. Decide your authentication method: Standard and/or OpenID. See more about Security options at the end of this article.
5. Create connections to Data Warehouses as either:
   • Cloud to cloud environments.
   • Cloud to on-premise via Firewall.
   • Cloud to on-premise via OLAP over HTTP.
   • Cloud to on-premise via TARGIT Data Gateway.
6. Test your TARGIT Cloud solution by opening the TARGIT Designer client (can be downloaded from the TARGIT Data Gateway client) or the Anywhere client from an URL.

Further reading: Connecting to on-premise Data

Migrating from existing on-premise TARGIT to TARGIT Cloud

If you are migrating from an existing on-premise TARGIT solution, we recommend that you initially get in touch with the TARGIT Cloud Support team. You should essentially go through the same steps as described above in TARGIT Cloud - getting started, however including these extra steps:

• Before moving to the Cloud, make sure your on-premise TARGIT solution is upgraded to the latest version of TARGIT.
• Make a backup of the on-premise solution.
• After step 3, Create a new Tenant, you should get in touch with TARGIT's Cloud Support team. The TARGIT Cloud Support team will restore your backup on the newly created Tenant. Once completed, you can continue with step 4 Set up authentication.

Authentication, Security

The Security model for TARGIT Cloud can be:

• Standard Security (TARGIT Server maintained Usernames and Passwords).
• OpenID Security (authentication via OpenID providers with options for two-factor authentication)

The Security settings are configured in the TARGIT Management client:

Note: You can run Standard Security and OpenID at the same time - offering both options when users log in. Unless you activate the 'OpenID connect only', then, of course, only OpenID authentication will be available to the end-users.

While both models are supported, we recommend using the OpenID Security model. Read more about setting up OpenID authentication here: https://community.targit.com/hc/en-us/articles/360016170937