Database Blog
A Simple Way to Improve Data Security
Shrink Your Sensitive Data Footprint Protecting data is hard. Knowing for sure that you have identified and mitigated every vulnerability takes a lot of work and constant vigilance. The more servers you have to harden, the more databases you have to protect, the more...
Is The Sensitive Data In Your Oracle Database Really Safe?
Discovering Sensitive Data Oracle has long had strong database encryption functionality and it keeps getting better. But they have been lacking a simple way to identify sensitive data in the database so you know what to encrypt, audit or protect via policies. I...
Mind the Gap – Data Security and Teenage Drivers
New Security Assessment Tool -- Why it matters? Oracle just released a database security assessment tool (DBSAT) that identifies security vulnerabilities in Oracle Databases. I will be writing about that tool in a coming article but the release got me thinking about...
A Christmas Backup Tale
Don't let the Backup Grinch steal Christmas I have written about this topic in the past but it seems that it can never be shared too many times. As we approach the holiday season, we don't want to be recovering data when we should be spending precious time with family...
Tales of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning
Planning for Disaster As we think about the enormous cleanup effort taking place in the wake of Harvey, Irma, and Maria, we are reminded of the importance of planning to keep your business up and running when disaster strikes. In this blog post I share the thoughts...
Database Backups and Gasoline Leaks
How is a database backup like a portable generator with a gasoline leak? And why should you care on a beautiful sunny September morning? How does any of this relate to Business Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity planning and testing? Read On! Lack of...
Architect Your Oracle Database for Efficient Backup and Recovery
Architecting for Backup and Recovery Efficiency with Oracle RMAN Database architecture is critical to achieving many business objectives. These include application performance, business continuity, security, and geographic distribution. This article will...
The Cloud Does Not Exist!
"Lets Move to The Cloud!" We often hear people talk about moving their business or their data center or their software to "The Cloud". For many, this concept seems confusing and vague. That's because The Cloud does not exist! There is no "The Cloud". In reality,...
Duplicating and Recovering Oracle Databases with RMAN
Oracle Recovery Manager Purpose And History Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) was developed essentially as a way to more effectively backup and recover Oracle databases, as an automation mechanism for the same, and as a way to keep track of and managing backup sets. It...
Oracle Virtual Private Database (VPD) — Granting Just Enough Access
Robust Access Control At The Database Layer Many Companies struggle with the difficult problem of providing fine grained access control at the database layer to sensitive data . We will discuss Oracle's Virtual Private Database feature which provides a robust way of...
Pursuing Excellence: Golf and Software Development
How to Improve After a particularly bad round of golf recently, I was thinking about how to improve my game. I thought about how we go about making improvements in anything we do. We evaluate what we have done, and based on that evaluation, we try to make changes...
Plugging the Database Audit Trail Gap
The Importance of Database Audit Trails and Security Assessments Database audit trails are critical tools for discovery, investigation, and prosecution of cyber crimes ranging from credit card theft to malicious activity by ex-employees to corporate espionage....
Using Oracle GoldenGate for real time data replication and integration.
Oracle GoldenGate is Oracle’s best-of-breed, strategic solution for real-time data replication and integration. It offers a rapid, robust and low-overhead approach for moving small or large volumes of transactional data between diverse operational and analytical...
Time to Validate Your Database Backup
Another new client, Another bad backup I originally wrote this post in July but I am updating it today because it is so important. Yesterday we did an initial Oracle Database Health Check for another new client and found yet again that their backups are useless. This...
Best Practices for Error Handling in Database Stored Procedures
I recently performed an assessment of a large set of Oracle stored procedures and batch scripts that a client uses as part of their build and update process. The problem was that the build process was not very stable. During each build, something would go wrong, such...
Ever Dropped an Oracle Table and Wish You Hadn’t?
If you’ve ever dreamed of going to a recycle bin like you can on Windows, and “undropping” an Oracle database table… Oracle has made your dream come true! Introduced with Oracle 10g, Oracle’s recycle bin works a lot like what you’re used to in Windows. When this...
Architecting to Maximize Recovery Options in Oracle
I recently received a frantic call from a client that believed they have been hacked and had to quickly recover data. They said that data belonging to two or more of their customers had been lost. Our customer functions essentially as an application service provider...
Do You Know If Your Data Backup and Recovery Strategy Is Working… Or Not?
To mitigate the business impacts of downtime and data loss, every Oracle database must be recoverable. This means every Oracle shop needs a strong backup and recovery strategy—one that takes into account the probabilities of hardware, software, network or procedural failure(s) in your current environment.
Tracking Oracle Database Access for Regulatory Compliance
Data stored in corporate databases is subject to increasing regulatory scrutiny. To ensure compliance with security guidelines in major regulations like SOX, PCI, HIPAA and FISMA, you need to implement controls not only to protect data from unauthorized access, but...
7 New Offerings: Oracle Steps Up Its Big Data Game
For any big data effort to succeed, an organization needs to figure out how to combine the right data from the right sources to generate the right insights to achieve its goals. Transactional applications might hold data on customer purchases, for instance. But their...