Archive for the ‘General’ Category
“How many people have a (data) warehouse today?”
Almost all hands shot up when Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) president and data warehousing expert Ian Abramson asked this question to a packed room of about 150 people Monday at Oracle OpenWorld.
Chances are, if all OpenWorld attendees had been present, the number of raised hands may have been well into the 30,000’s. But since it’s impossible to attend all 1,800 OpenWorld sessions, I have some highlights and tips from Abramson’s talk, “Oracle 11g database features for your data warehouse needs.”
Abramson told the audience that the key to data warehousing is being able to “compete effectively in today’s challenging environment.” So, which Oracle tools and features help to do this?
Here are just a few of many :
Partitioning: The partition option has been around since Oracle 8 and is the key enabling function for managing large volumes of data. Partitioning methods include list, range (best for fact-based data), hash (best for more dimensional data) and composite (this has been expanded in 11g and includes range/hash and list/range combinations). Abramson also pointed to recent partitioning improvements that include greater manageability, compression enhancements and the release of the Oracle Warehouse Builder for ETL.
Virtual Columns: The virtual columns feature is a completely new function with Oracle 11g. These columns are purely virtual and stored as metadata only. Read this tip from SearchOracle.com to learn how virtual columns can improve database manageability, availability and performance.
Information lifecycle management: Far fewer people raised their hands to say they used information lifecycle management (ILM) than said they had a data warehouse. ILM is a series of processes that, as Abramson says, “allows you to invest your storage dollars more effectively.” ILM goes far beyond simple database storage automation and allows users to specify different storage policies for different sets of data.
Security: Abramson said it clearly: “You want it, you need it, you better have it.” This message should not be taken lightly, especially since the release of “scary” findings from an IOUG security survey. The findings show that about 20 % of people are expecting their database to be hacked into in the next year - - and the majority isn’t taking the appropriate measures (encryption, database triggers, etc) to prevent it from happening
I later sat down with Abramson to discuss these survey findings, including the risks that internal sources pose to database security. Abramson also talks about his vision for IOUG, what he hopes members will take away from the conference and the results of another IOUG survey on IT salaries. Stay tuned to SearchOracle OpenWorld coverage for a chance to listen to this podcast - - and catch up on other sessions you may have missed!
LewisC's An Expert's Guide to Oracle Technology
It's official. There will be an Oracle XE 11g but it won't be available until after 11gR2 (which has no release date at the moment).
According to Andy Mendelsohn, Oracle SVP of server technologies, in ...
An increasing number of banks are working on their long-term business and IT visions of the future, continually realigning their IT strategies. To help enterprise architects better understand the business and IT environment of the future, Forrester surveyed key vendors in the banking space and interviewed banking executives on five continents to get their take on banking's — and banking IT's — future. How will intelligent devices change the industry? New channels and devices will shape the new face of "ebanking": Convenient mobile banking from anywhere at any time will be the norm, and virtual branches will be the rule.
All organizations that accept or process payment cards are subject to the U.S. Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). A recent analysis, however, of security breaches and forensics data indicates that organizations are not correctly scoping the PCI environment, nor are they properly monitoring these systems according to PCI guidelines. Until these issues are corrected, data breaches will keep occurring, even though organizations have PCI compliance programs.GAIT for Business and IT Risk (GAIT-R), part of the Guide to the Assessment of IT Risk (GAIT) series, is well suited for remedying this situation. In order to more concretely illustrate the application of GAIT-R in a PCI environment, The IIA has released a paper walking the reader through the process, step by step. "Case Studies of Using GAIT for Business and IT Risk to Scope PCI Compliance" examines two scenarios, documenting the thought process for scoping and substantiation of IT controls. Download Case Studies of Using GAIT-R to Scope PCI Compliance (PDF, 400KB).
All organizations that accept or process payment cards are subject to the U.S. Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). A recent analysis, however, of security breaches and forensics data indicates that organizations are not correctly scoping the PCI environment, nor are they properly monitoring these systems according to PCI guidelines. Until these issues are corrected, data breaches will keep occurring, even though organizations have PCI compliance programs.GAIT for Business and IT Risk (GAIT-R), part of the Guide to the Assessment of IT Risk (GAIT) series, is well suited for remedying this situation. In order to more concretely illustrate the application of GAIT-R in a PCI environment, The IIA has released a paper walking the reader through the process, step by step. "Case Studies of Using GAIT for Business and IT Risk to Scope PCI Compliance" examines two scenarios, documenting the thought process for scoping and substantiation of IT controls. Download Case Studies of Using GAIT-R to Scope PCI Compliance (PDF, 400KB).
The IIA recently conducted a survey to assist us in understanding the current status of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) adoption worldwide, the internal auditor's role in this process, and your needs and expectations.Although most respondents reported not being required currently to comply with XBRL, nearly 90% expressed interest in learning more about it. As interactive data advances into the global business world, regulators in many countries have issued various mandates that require organizations to file financial statements in XBRL. The adoption of XBRL would mean new opportunities and challenges for the internal audit profession. As the guidance setting body for the profession, The IIA is working on an XBRL report to provide internal auditors with the necessary knowledge and guidance on this topic. Click here to view the Executive Summary of the XBRL survey results. (PDF, 130K)
LewisC's
An Expert's Guide To Oracle Technology
Yes! Now this is what I have been waiting for. The
Oracle Cloud Computing Center.
Oracle has played a pioneering role in making Grid Computing relevant to enterprises with ground breaking products such as Real Applications Cluster (RAC), Automatic Storage Management (ASM), and Storage Grid. More recently, O
LewisC's
An Expert's Guide To Oracle Technology
Well, I missed Dan Norris' How to be an ACE presentation. I signed up for it but forgot to get my list of sessions.
I did make it to an unconference session though. It was a discussion led by some Piocon guys on ways to improve the OTN forums.
He started with a difficult SQL question that was asked on the forums and stepped through a handful of answers.
After that we discussed
With the financial crisis (or should I say crises) happening faster than a bunch of falling dominoes, Larry Ellison is unconcerned about how this will affect Oracle and technology spending (in general). The fact that Oracle’s “exposure to banking customers is in the low-single digits” with an even lower exposure to US banks could be the reason Larry has kept on smiling. In fact, revenues grew 18% compared to last year’s 4th quarter.
Well, if Larry isn’t worried, why should we?
Last night was the blogger meetup. It was at the Thirsty Bear on Howard St just down the road from the Moscone where most of OOW is going on.
This has become a tradition now. It's in its third year and it gets bigger every year. Mark Rittman started it and carried it over to 2007. Eddie Awad took ownership of it this year. Oracle contributed to the merriment, too.
I thought about listing the people I saw there but I know I would miss someone and I don't want to do that. I'll just say
Two-thirds of firms hit by cybercrime
Microsoft's latest version of SQL Server delivers greatly improved manageability, business intelligence, security, integration, and availability, making database administrators (DBAs) more productive and databases more optimized. In addition, SQL Server 2008 goes beyond DBA productivity to boost developers, security professionals, architects, and business users. Enterprises managing hundreds or thousands of SQL Server databases will find that the new policy-based management feature justifies a speedier upgrade path. Although Microsoft has an edge over Oracle, IBM, and Sybase on cost, manageability, security vulnerabilities, and ecosystem size, technology gaps remain at the high end for extreme high availability, distributed data caching, and support for very large data warehouses. However, Microsoft is likely to narrow these gaps in the near future through acquisitions and continued R&D. Still, for the majority of mission-critical applications today, SQL Server 2008 already has the strongest combination of price/performance, manageability, security, and DBA productivity.
McAfee snaps up Secure Computing
Protecting the organization's laptops and desktops is a crucial and never-ending battle for many IT professionals. Evolving security threats have led to a proliferation of security tools, increasing IT costs and systems management headaches. Infrastructure and operations pros facing these challenges with their PC environment should take advantage of emerging management and security suites from vendors like Microsoft and Symantec to stem costs, simplify operations, and increase the overall security posture of machines and their associated data.
Every year, Forrester receives more than 265 inquiries on topics related to business resiliency such as business continuity, IT continuity, IT high availability, and data backup. Between August 2007 and August 2008, 62 end users made inquiries primarily on business continuity. At 33%, the most common topic of inquiry was business continuity standards, a topic we expect will pick up steam as more and more companies use these standards as a starting point for their business continuity management plans. Emergency communication was another hot topic at 26%, followed closely by organizational structures and staffing at 15% and business continuity planning software at 13%. Are these issues that your organization is addressing? If not, you may be falling behind your peers and competitors as they prioritize business continuity management and preparedness.
Adoption of eStatements in the US continues to grow strongly, as seen in data from Forrester's North American Technographics® Financial Services Online Survey, Q2 2008. More than 55% of online checking, savings, and credit card customers today receive an eStatement. That's up from slightly more than 40% in 2006. Checking eStatement adoption alone jumped 11% in less than one year. Nearly one in three online consumers find little use for any statement — all the information they need is available online. Concern for the environment motivates half of all paperless consumers to switch. And 70% of consumers still receiving paper statements could also be convinced to move to online only. What would make them switch? As little as $5 for half of Gen Y and Gen X holdouts, while Boomers and Seniors are looking for more statement storage options.
LewisC's An Expert's Guide to Oracle Technology
It's the second day of my trip to OOW. The real conference starts for me tomorrow but today I got to attend the ACE Director product briefing.
I was hoping for some new stuff (like maybe a big announce...
I have just updated my Oracle Security site home page which includes speaking dates down the left hand side towards the bottom of the page. I am going to be speaking in Iceland in September - doing my 2 hour....[Read More]
Posted by Pete On 31/07/08 At 07:46 PM
LewisC's An Expert's Guide to Oracle Technology
Sunday, Sept 20, 2008: Day 1 of my trip to San Francisco for OOW 2008. This post is all about the journey, not the destination.
7:10am EST
I'm in the airport in Tampa. Free wireless. TPA is one of the ...
A new UK IT collaborative project has been officially announced: EnCoRe - Ensuring Consent and Revocation (some initial press releases: here and here):
"As more and more personal information flows from individuals to organisations when they interact online, people are becoming more and more concerned that they can not effectively control what this information is used for, with which other organisations it is shared, and where it is stored. They may have given their consent, often in vague terms and implicitly, for its use, sharing and storage, but they have no real control over the specifics of these, nor the ability to revoke their consent and be sure that their wish is respected. In summary, they are not able to control where their personal information flows to, and this makes them uneasy about interacting online.
The overall vision of this project is to make giving consent as reliable and easy as turning on a tap, and revoking that consent as reliable and easy as turning it off again."
This £3.6m project consortium is multi-disciplinary, spanning across a number of IT and social science specialisms. The project partners are Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, HW Communications, QinetiQ, the London School of Economics, the Ethox Centre of the University of Oxford and the University of Warwick.
The EnCoRe project runs from June 2008 to November 2011. It receives funding from the UK Government's Technology Strategy Board, Economic & Social Research Council and Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council.
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I was recently invited to lend my expertise on software license compliance on the ECT News Network.
Go to http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/64465.html to read my Software License Compliance: Myth vs. Reality article.
Palin e-mail intruder left digital trail
An increasing number of banks are working on their long-term business and IT visions of the future, continually realigning their IT strategies. To help enterprise architects better understand the business and IT environment of the future, Forrester surveyed key vendors in the banking space and interviewed banking executives on five continents to get their take on banking's — and banking IT's — future. The net outcome for their branches? Branches will survive in many incarnations, but the classic brick-and-mortar one will be rare. And all types of branches will need high-tech infrastructure to be efficient and to improve the customer experience as well as the customer relationship.
Here are some quick self audit tips should you ever be faced with an Oracle audit:
1. Proof of ownership- Collect all software licensing agreements (SLAs), invoices, and other renewal or procurement documentation. This paper trail will help in the audit process.
2. Measure your Oracle licensing usage- try to account for how often each Oracle product is used - including both typical usage and maximum usage - to ensure that the proper licenses have been purchased based on the amount of access.
3. Licensing is not “black & white” - Be aware that situations vary from company to company and so will what Oracle constitutes as being in compliance. Be cognizant that the following scenarios below each has its own licensing challenges:
a. Internet and extranet access
b. Transfers of data to and from your system
c. Backup, standup and failover
d. Test servers
e. Virtualized environment
4. Understand that any modification can impact licensing. Any modifications made within Oracle’s e-Business suite applications - such as to forms and reports - need to be accounted for as it is considered an alteration of the license usage.
5. Compare. If you have an SLA that was signed several years ago (or even a year ago), be sure that it still supports your current business needs. In a dynamic business environment, needs change so quickly that licensing does not always keep up. One example is the mobile workforce. Many organizations have not taken this new method of working into account when reviewing their Oracle licensing and have often been cited as being non-compliant.
As with any audit - whether it’s the IRS or Oracle - it’s best to be prepared. The first step should always be a self audit (Remember, knowledge is power). As with many organizations, it’s not surprising to discover that they are NOT in compliance with their Oracle software licensing -the most common reason is over-licensing or under-licensing. If your Oracle licensing is not in compliance, be sure to resolve the issues quickly, develop a plan for dealing with future licensing usage and be open with Oracle (or any software vendor) about your findings and how you plan to deal with it moving forward. In our experience, Oracle will work with clients during these audits. Majority of the time, non compliance is due to lack of a software asset management program and changes in software licensing rules.
Bavarian Police Seeking Skype Trojan Informant
Surviving an FTC Investigation After a Data Breach