Database Blog
Oracle Active Data Guard Replication Error with Cisco Firewall: Root Cause and Workaround
One of our customers had issues over the past several months with Oracle Active Data Guard replication to a standby server. The database on the standby server would intermittently fall out of sync with the database on the primary server, and log files were not consistently shipping to the standby server.
Ensure Redundant Database Coverage, During Covid-19 and Always
During this health crisis and always, ensure that at least two people know how to access and manage your database.
Test Your Disaster Recovery Strategies before Disaster Strikes
As the old saying goes, “It’s better to be safe than sorry,” and testing your disaster recovery data is essential to keeping you and your data safe!
It’s in the Database
Managed Health Systems of Indiana patient health information, July-September, 2019; Microsoft customer service and support records, January 22, 2020; Wyze email addresses, December 30, 2019; Georgia Tech student data, March 2019. What do all of these breaches have in...
Database Patch News — February 2020 (Issue 2)
Welcome to Database Patch News, Buda Consulting’s monthly newsletter of current patch information for Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.
Cloud Customers Need to Secure Their Own Data
The key takeaway is that if you have your data in any cloud service, you must be as rigorous in securing that data as if it were in your own data center—and in some cases even more so.
Communication Breakdown: Avoiding Conflict with Your Customers
This post describes two kinds of situations where conflict is likely to occur if we don’t handle things well, along with some thoughts about how to avoid conflict in these and other instances.
SQL Server Data Encryption Options
These days it’s only a matter of time before our firewalls or access controls are breached. Then what? In a multi-tiered security strategy, data encryption is a critical next line of defense.
Oracle Data Encryption Options
Oracle offers various authentication and audit features to protect data from unauthorized access. But what about data at rest in operating system files, backups or other storage media?
Lock the Safe—Secure the Database
You are going away on a much-needed vacation to Aruba. You will only be gone for a week. But you understand the importance of security, so you make sure you lock the windows and doors. You put the lights on a timer so would-be thieves think there is some activity in...
GDPR Right to Be Forgotten and Other Access Rights
To ease compliance with Article 15, 16, and 17 of GDPR, and to support compliance with other GDPR Articles, we recommend the following steps with regard to handling of personal data.
Database Patch News — November 2019 (Issue 1)
Welcome to Database Patch News, Buda Consulting’s monthly newsletter of current patch information for Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. Here you’ll find information on available patches—including security patches—and desupported versions made available during the past month.
Donuts and Data Backups
This is the story of a data loss event that changed my young life and put my feet on the path of becoming a DBA.
Why Your Database Management Team Should Regularly Double-Check Your Backups
I’ve blogged before about the importance of checking database backups. Over 90% of new clients that we assess have backups that are either incomplete or totally unusable (true statistic!). The following story of a backup failure that happened recently—and the...
An Overlooked Oracle Management Task—Support Identifier Management
An often overlooked task that can cause problems outside of your RDBMS environment is managing your Oracle customer support identifiers (CSIs). This post offers best practices to prevent CSI-related issues.
Does Data Governance Make You Shudder?
At a recent vendor conference, I found myself talking with a varied group of technology professionals. Two were technology generalists, one was a data engineer, one was responsible for transportation technology at a major university (think autonomous vehicles, traffic...
SQL Server Contained Databases and Oracle Multi-tenant: Advantages Compared
In short, the main goal of multitenancy is to facilitate database consolidation, while the main purpose of contained databases is to enable isolation and thus portability. Yet each approach addresses both these concerns.
How to Resolve Oracle Database Licensing Issues with Processor Cores in Virtualized Environments
This post focuses on Oracle database licensing by processor core, and explains a common mistakes administrators make when setting up a virtualized Oracle environment.
Why You Should Not Thin Provision Your Production Storage
Thin provisioning is a good option when used in a development environment or other scenario where only test data would reside on the virtual server. But it may not be not a good choice for production environments because of the high potential for downtime and data loss.
How Valuable is Your Data to Your Business?
How well do you protect your database? You may think you are protecting it pretty well, but lets challenge that. Lets apply the same thinking to the database as you would to something more tangible. Precious Personal Possessions Imagine that you live in a gated...