Welcome to 5 Minute Briefing: Oracle an information resource prepared by Database Trends and Applications Magazine and published in cooperation with the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG). To subscribe, click here.

ExeVision Launches Remote DDA Program For Maintenance on Oracle Systems

ExeVision, a premier provider of Oracle consulting and development services, has announced a new remote DBA/Administration and maintenance program, providing quarterly or ongoing environment tuning, upgrades and security updates for businesses with Oracle installations. "As the lifeblood of many companies, the Oracle environment can only effectively support an organization when it is tuned for performance, maintained and functioning properly," said Brent McKinley, director of business development for ExeVision. "It has become apparent that many Oracle sites would rather not dedicate full-time resources to the maintenance of their Oracle environments, yet have an urgent need for those functions. The ability of ExeVision to provide ongoing DBA and administrative services 'as needed,' including maintenance and system tuning for Oracle systems at a fraction of the cost of internal resources, has turned out to be very valuable to our clients."

ExeVision's remote DBA program provides a way for companies to choose the level of maintenance for their installation, from simple quarterly security patch application and system performance review, to more in-depth system health monitoring and ongoing preventative maintenance, upgrades, and so on. For installations requiring fulltime DBA/Admin personnel, ExeVision offers both onsite and remote options.

By introducing these new maintenance services, ExeVision remains focused on providing best-in-the-industry Oracle administration and development services while catering to the timing and technology requirements of Oracle clients. The remote DBA service was created to provide clients quality outsourced resources while helping them reduce overhead and control associated costs. For more information, go here.

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Solix Technologies Announces Support for Oracle Database 11g

Solix Technologies, a provider of enterprise data management solutions used by large enterprise customers to manage business critical data, has announced that the Solix Enterprise Data Management Suite (Solix EDMS) supports the Oracle Database 11g, including the Total Recall and Partitioning options. Solix EDMS addresses organizations' compliance and information lifecycle management requirements, according to Julie Lockner, vice president of sales operations, Solix Technologies.
 
Oracle Total Recall with Flashback Data Archive transparently tracks data changes down to the record level so that previous versions of the record can be recovered and viewed back to a specific point in time. Data is retained in the database in a compressed format to reduce storage requirements. Solix EDMS, which includes four complementary solutions, Solix Enterprise Archiving, Solix Secure Test and Development, Solix Application Sunsetting and Migration, and Solix Data Auditor, integrates with Oracle’s Total Recall to help customers manage historical data capture and long-term retention in an application-transparent manner. Solix EDMS metadata-driven approach to managing enterprise data is intended to make it easy for users to map business classification policies to Oracle’s Total Recall and Flashback capability on the back end.
 
Solix EDMS relocates and manages the Flashback archived data to an online active archive, helping to reduce the overall size of the production database and improve database performance, while also helping companies to address regulatory and business requirements, Lockner told 5 Minute Briefing. End-users maintain access to the archived data while the data is migrated to a lower cost infrastructure, also supporting tiered storage strategies.
 
Solix EDMS also integrates with Oracle Partitioning, which enables tables to be split into smaller, more manageable components and is a key requirement for any large database with high performance and high availability requirements. With Solix EDMS’s central Metadata Manager, users can take advantage of pre-populated support for Oracle Applications, such as Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle’s PeopleSoft, Oracle’s JD Edwards and Oracle’s Siebel CRM for transaction- or partition-based archiving. Solix Technologies Certified Partner in the Oracle PartnerNetwork. For more information about Solix and its solutions, go here.

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ElcomSoft's Windows Password Recovery and Auditing Software Now Supports Oracle

ElcomSoft, a provider of password recovery and auditing software based in Moscow, Russia, and certified gold Microsoft partner, has added support for Oracle and Unix passwords to ElcomSoft Distributed Password Recovery v. 2.10. “This solution is targeted at all companies using Oracle and/or Unix,” Olga Koksharova, marketing director at ElcomSoft, told 5 Minute Briefing in an email exchange. “The product is developed to assist organizations to regularly audit their passwords as a part of their corporate computer data protection, information leakage prevention, in other words to simply improve IT security policy.  It is particularly useful that ElcomSoft Distributed Password Recovery (EDPR) already comprises a base for all Oracle default passwords, so it instantly reveals possible security holes.”

According to ElcomSoft, the latest version of its Windows password recovery application makes it easy for system administrators to regularly audit all of the passwords on the network, including Oracle and Unix passwords, to ensure that they comply with corporate security policies. By loading widely-available Oracle and Unix system hashes into the application, administrators can identify weak passwords, and make appropriate corrections.  The software also gives administrators a comprehensive solution for recovering passwords for files and systems when employees forget their Windows, Oracle, or Unix passwords, or when they deliberately modify passwords in an effort to sabotage their companies.

Distributed Password Recovery installs "Agents" onto as many computers on the network as the user desires. Each of these Agents uses “brute force” to try to recover the lost password. The program ensures that these Agents work together, and combine their computing power to find the lost password. The more computing power available, the faster the recovery speed is. Another module of the program, the Console, is designed to manage the Agents. The Agents work in the background without interfering with other programs, using the CPU only when it is in its idle state. When a password is restored or a document is decrypted, the program informs the administrator by email, and starts processing the next task. Using the Console, an administrator can also keep statistics.

ElcomSoft Distributed Password Recovery v. 2.10 supports all Unix/Linux password hashing algorithms, including Traditional DES, BSDi DES, Kerberos AFS DES, OpenBSD Blowfish, FreeBSD MD5, PHPass MD5, and Apache MD5. In addition, ElcomSoft's new Oracle software works with both the old DES-based Oracle hash, and the new v11 SHA1-based hash. For more information and a free trial version of Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery, visit here.

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Oracle is Everywhere

According to market research firm IDC, Oracle is the overall leader in the worldwide embedded database management system (DBMS) software sector. In its latest report, "Worldwide Embedded DBMS 2007-2011 Forecast and 2006 Vendor Shares," IDC reported that Oracle held 23.2 percent of worldwide embedded DBMS software revenue by vendor, surpassing the next closest vendor with 14.1 percent. Additionally, IDC notes that Oracle achieved an annual growth rate of 23.3 percent, almost double the 11.7 percent growth rate for the industry as a whole. IDC defines embedded DBMSs as database management systems sold to independent software vendors and used as components within larger software or hardware products. IDC also notes that embedded DBMSs are typically optimized for performance and small footprint and have management functions that are handled automatically by either the database or application. Oracle has invested in the embedded database market over the past several years, acquiring Sleepycat, which marketed Berkeley DB, and TimesTen in-memory database. Unisphere Research, our research arm, conducts proprietary research with leading IT user groups. To read abstracts of these studies, go here. Are you interested in having proprietary research conducted for your company about issues of concern to you? For more information, send an email to Tom@dbta.com

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Now This is a Lot of Data

Recently, it was announced that Bill Gates and former Microsoft executive Charles Simonyi have pledged $30 million towards building the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which, when completed in 2014 will be able to survey the entire night sky every three days. From our point of view, what is most impressive is that the telescope will generate 30 terabytes of data nightly and the data will be immediately available to the public in real time. The entire project could cost close to $400 million and promises to lead to significant advances in data management as well as basic science. As the much as we talk about the need to be able to manage large amounts of data, we really as still at the beginning of that effort. And as data volumes continue to increase, the ability to move data efficiently for different applications will be impaired. The database itself will be the locus of more transformations, calculations and analysis. To follow trends in the industry, keep reading 5 Minute Briefing and subscribe to Database Trends and Applications magazine here.

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5 Reasons to Attend COLLABORATE 08 – IOUG Forum

For the third consecutive year, the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) will be hosting the event of the year for Oracle customers: COLLABORATE 08 – IOUG Forum, taking place April 13-17, 2008 in Denver, CO. Here are 5 reasons why you can’t afford to miss this event:

1. Education

• More than 325 educational sessions will be presented by fellow customers and experts from the Oracle user community.
  
• There will be special boot camps on Fusion Middleware, Development and Business Intelligence.
  
• Take advantage of extended Oracle education through the IOUG’s University Seminars*, which provide deeper-dive training in a more relaxed environment.
  
• You have the ability to attend more than 600 additional educational sessions presented by the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) and Quest International (Quest), co-hosts of COLLABORATE 08.
  

2. Keynote Presentations

• The COLLABORATE opening keynote address will be presented by Oracle President Charles Phillips Jr.
  
• There will also be many other presentations by Oracle executives and industry experts.
  

3. Hands-on Lab Sessions

• IOUG members will receive exclusive access to these technical sessions, which will provide you with even more knowledge on a first-hand basis.
  

4. Exhibitor Showcase

• More than 250 solution providers will be present in the Exhibitor Showcase to answer your business questions/challenges.
  

5. Networking

• You will have the chance to network with more than 7,500 Oracle professionals like you at receptions, unconference tables, educational sessions and in the Exhibitor Showcase.
  

Hear from past COLLABORATE attendees to find out why they continue to attend this conference.

Let your supervisor know why you can’t afford to miss COLLABORATE 08 and complete the IOUG Forum training proposal. Then, register before March 13 to save up to $400!

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DBA and Other IT Professions Listed in the Top 30 Jobs for 2008

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its new report on the top 30 jobs for 2008. Among the 30 fastest-growing occupations, five IT-related professions were listed, which included database administrators.

The number one job listed for 2008 was also an IT profession: network systems and data communications analysts. Others listed were applications computer software engineers, computer systems analysts and computer systems software engineers.

To view the top 30 jobs for 2008, please click here.

Then, continue to advance yourself as an Oracle IT professional by joining the IOUG to take advantage of exclusive member benefits!

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RMOUG Training Days Registrants: Receive COLLABORATE 08 – IOUG Forum Discounts

Planning to attend RMOUG Training Days, taking place February 13-14, 2008 in Denver, CO? As a registrant of this event, you have the opportunity to receive discounted registration to COLLABORATE 08 - IOUG Forum, also taking place in Denver, CO, April 13-17, 2008.

Save on either an IOUG University Seminar registration or a complete conference registration:

• Attend IOUG Sunday University Seminars for only $400*, almost a $60 discount.
  
• Attend the entire COLLABORATE 08 conference for only $1,095*, with up to $1,000 in savings
  

Receive Oracle training in the winter at RMOUG Training Days and continue your learning in the spring at COLLABORATE 08. Take advantage of the IOUG’s and the RMOUG’s partnership and save on COLLABORATE 08 – IOUG Forum registration rates.

You must first be registered for RMOUG Training Days. Upon registration completion, you will receive an e-mail confirmation with a promotional code to secure your COLLABORATE 08 – IOUG Forum registration discount. Simply enter the code when registering for COLLABORATE 08 – IOUG Forum and save!

*Registration rates apply to all registration periods with the exception of onsite.

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Start the Year Right: Join the IOUG to Receive Exclusive Oracle Resources

As the new year begins, join the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), a membership organization comprised of more than 20,000 Oracle technology and database professionals, for only $150 to receive year-round benefits, including:

• Event and Product Discounts

IOUG members receive discounted registration on COLLABORATE 08 - IOUG Forum, the premier annual conference for providing peer exchange and expert insights that help attendees to better administer their company's data. IOUG members also receive discounts to various regional events as well as product discounts, such as the 40% Oracle Press bookstore discount.

• SELECT Journal

This quarterly technical journal provides in-depth technical articles written by recognized authorities in Oracle technology. Members receive printed copies, web access to the current issue and unlimited access to archives.

• Library of Oracle Knowledge (LoOK)

LoOK is an exclusive repository of technical resources, including conference papers, presentations, tips, best practices, select white papers and other technical documents from Oracle Corporation, vendor members and other sources.

• IOUG ResearchWire

Produced in conjunction with Database Trends and Applications magazine, this research based e-newsletter provides IOUG members the opportunity to participate in technology research and have first-hand access to the findings, so that they know how their company stacks up against others.

And much more!

To learn more about the benefits of belonging to the IOUG for only $150 per year, please visit the IOUG Web site.

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Founded in 1993, the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) (formerly International Oracle Users Group) is a user-driven membership organization for Oracle technology and database professionals serving more than 15,000 database administrators, developers, architects, technical managers and other Oracle professionals throughout North America and worldwide. The IOUG empowers its members and the broader Oracle community through their technical publication, SELECT Journal, Web site resources including more than 3000 papers, tips and articles and networking with other users through online discussion forums, Special Interest Groups and a network of regional Oracle user groups. For more information about the IOUG, please visit the IOUG Web site.

Database Trends and Applications, published by Unisphere Media, provides timely coverage of the technology and intelligence needed to conceptualize, plan, initiate, implement and manage large-scale integrated information projects. Unisphere Media also publishes 5 Minute Briefing: Data Integration, a summary of news, trends, and insights addressing crucial data integration challenges and 5 Minute Briefing: MultiValue, a review of news, technical tips and insights for the MultiValue database community. Visit our Web site here.

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