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Common misconceptions about database security | Tech News on ZDNet 

By Slavik Markovich, CTO of Sentrigo, News.com Posted on ZDNet News : May 05, 2008 11:15:47 AM Commentary-- You would think that enterprises realize by ... now that databases, which hold the crown jewels of sensitive information, need protecting. Unfortunately, there seems to be a serious disconnect and knowledge gap between IT security professionals and DBAs that are entrusted with the task of safeguarding databases. Database-specific knowledge is crucial for successfully enforcing security policy as it relates to databases and that knowledge is most readily available with database administrators. Only serious dialog between IT security and the DBA department would create the knowledge necessary to develop and enforce an effective security policy for databases and prioritize it correctly among the other IT security items. Common misconceptions IT security has about database security: 1. My databases are all behind firewalls and IDS/IPS so I m protected --Not so. Attacks can originate insi   [More...] [Less...]

Cuong Do on YouTube's infrastructure 

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Service-Oriented Architecture - Oracel.com 

Electrification announcement this summer 

April 15th 2009 Rail chiefs confident of electrification ‘We expect an announcement on electrification this summer,' says Iain Coucher, chief executive ... of Network Rail. In confident mood Iain Coucher, Simon Kirby and Robin Gisby have been readying the industry to move from an operations and maintenance regime to an era of sustained investment in an expanded, high capacity railway. ‘Control Period Three (just gone) was all about fixing the railway,' says Coucher, speaking at a press briefing in the City of London. Going on to stress that an ambitious future will see the industry making rail a much bigger part of society, an upbeat Coucher continued, ‘We have an investment programme other industries would die for.' Electrification of arterial main lines in the west and the midlands along with High Speed Two will further boost the fortunes of Britain's top performing transport industry. Moreover the recession seems not to unduly worry senior rail chiefs. ‘We are getting people with much h   [More...] [Less...]

Understanding Service-Oriented Architecture 

If the principles summarized in Table 1 are complied with, we get some interesting benefits: There is real synchronization between the business and IT ... implementation perspective . For many years, business people haven't really understood the IT architecture. With well designed services we can radically improve communications with the business, and indeed move beyond alignment and seriously consider convergence of business and IT processes. A well formed service provides us with a unit of management that relates to business usage. Enforced separation of the service provision provides us with basis for understanding the life cycle costs of a service and how it is used in the business. When the service is abstracted from the implementation it is possible to consider various alternative options for delivery and collaboration models. No one expects that, at any stage in the foreseeable future, core enterprise applications will be acquired purely by assembling services from multiple sources.   [More...] [Less...]

A future for mainframes in SOA 

While it is far too early to get an answer it is now possible to ask, as a serious rather than trivial question, whether there is scope to see new sales ... of zSeries mainframes grow into the SOA and web services-based market sectors as a result of new developments in integration tools, such as the recent appearance of DataDirect Technologies' major upgrade of its Shadow integration platform, for the traditionally back-office machines. Will it be enough to prove to be a positive lever on green field zSeries sales? It might still be a brave person who answered ‘yes’ right now, the opportunity now exists where the mainframe can start to play a full part in a web-services/SOA environment, running applications that can proactively participate in that environment rather than just be a passive contributor to it. While it may not be natural to think of a mainframe as a core system in such an environment, Version 7 of Shadow does offer the potential to move IBM's zSeries systems well beyond the t   [More...] [Less...]

What is SOA, really? 

The good news is, you probably already know. The bad news is, you probably know too much. This article describes Service Oriented Architecture in a simple ... and easy to understand way that is devoid of buzzwords and vendor spin. It’s the introduction to SOA that you haven’t been able to find anywhere else. There are things in a business that don’t change very often. Gas stations in the U.S., for example, still sell gasoline by the gallon. Restaurants still sell meals from a menu. Dentists still sell cleanings every 6 months. Every business has these aspects that don’t change very frequently. They often represent a huge part of the business. We’ll call these things the _core business functions. There are other things in a business that change very frequently. Prices, tax rates, catalogs, new products, new marketing campaigns, advertising, new business areas, new customer areas, etc. Indeed, businesses must be able to change, and change quickly, in order to survive. And yet, it is vital th   [More...] [Less...]

Economic Recession: Good or Bad for Cloud Computing? - Network World 

I heard someone assert a week or so ago that Gartner Group had stated that the recession is going to be bad for cloud computing. Since this seems counter-intuitive ... (because offerings that are, at least, putatively less expensive should be more attractive in difficult economic times), I decided to do some searching to find the statement and understand the context. What I found was ... nothing. No evidence that someone from Gartner put forth that opinion. Nevertheless, there is something to be examined in this question: is the recession good or bad for cloud computing? Where you come down on that question depends a great deal on how you think most IT organizations will consume cloud services. By cloud services, I refer to the characteristics of cloud computing (a good definition is presented by the UC Berkeley RAD Lab, which was discussed in this blog posting ); in other words, how will IT organizations achieve an infrastructure that scales easily, can be reconfigured in minutes rather t   [More...] [Less...]