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 (ASP). Their customers’ data is in an Oracle database that […]
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 also to monitor and report on access when it occurs. This capability, usually referred to […]
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 browsing patterns, loyalty interactions and responses to tweeted offers are probably […]
Still Think Your Business is Too Small for Big Data?
Just because your business isn’t that big doesn’t mean you don’t have “big data” issues or a need for big data-style analytics to remain competitive. “Big data” is a relative term—relative to needs and capabilities for making business decisions, that is. Nearly every organization, whatever its size, will sooner or later reach the point where […]
Get Your Oracle Databases Ready to Go Mobile
One of the big questions on the minds of more and more Oracle database users is “How do we leverage our Oracle investment to enable mobile applications?” Mobility isn’t just about using a tablet or mobile phone. It’s about providing secure, reliable and fast access to backend data and processes (like CRM and ERP)—on-demand. That […]
You Need More than a Firewall to Protect Your Oracle Databases
Unless you’ve been in suspended animation for the past few years, you know that major government agencies and global enterprises are hacked with numbing regularity despite their best efforts to defend themselves. Whether from nation states, cybercriminals or disgruntled staff, your Oracle databases are vulnerable to similar attack. In most organizations, two-thirds of sensitive and […]
Is Database-as-a-Service Right for Your Company?
According to recent research, Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) is projected to grow at almost 90% year over year, to about $2 billion by 2016. The key drivers, as you might expect, are costs and time saved. From SMBs to multinationals, organizations are moving Oracle databases to the cloud in droves. Actually, there are two ways to run […]
Compliance 101 for Oracle DBAs
Regulatory compliance issues are top-of-mind for today’s senior executives. New laws and industry regulations are changing how organizations acquire, store, manage, retain and dispose of data. Every Oracle DBA should be aware of these changes because of their sweeping impacts on the DBA job role. Compliance goes hand-in-hand with security because regulations often mandate that […]
The High Cost of Bad Data—And How To Avoid Paying It
How much is bad data costing your organization? Data is only useful if it is timely, relevant and reliable. Incorrect, redundant and incomplete data introduces risks that negatively impact business operations and skew business analytics/decision-making. Poor data quality also impacts information security and compliance programs. And as businesses amass more and more data, just the […]
Anatomy of a Database Security Assessment
Data security is not a “set it and forget it” condition—it’s highly dynamic, changing as your environment evolves, new threats appear and new vulnerabilities are introduced. And as the recent rash of high-profile breaches in retail databases illustrate, securing your databases is at least as important as securing other parts of your infrastructure. The end […]
