Database Management Articles
Protecting the data in our enterprise databases is extremely important. But what exactly does that mean? Oh, at one level we have the database authorization and roles built directly into the DBMS products. You know what I'm talking about: GRANT and REVOKE statements that can be used to authorize access to database objects, resources and statements. Many organizations have adopted policies and products to migrate this type of security out of the DBMS and into their operating system security software.
Posted July 13, 2009
At a rather muted Microsoft TechEd in Los Angeles in May, the crowds were diminished and the educational content was slimmed down. In the past, SQL Server sessions were so abundant that you'd have trouble choosing which of several you might want to attend. This year, the state of the economy was reflected in many ways, including the one, or, in just a few cases, two sessions per time slot allotted SQL Server professionals. Despite the low ebb, the Microsoft SQL Server team made an exciting announcement about the upcoming availability of the SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP (Community Technology Preview).
Posted July 13, 2009
The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released version 8.4 of the PostgreSQL open source database. The new release contains 293 new or improved features, including many enhancements to make administering, querying, and programming of PostgreSQL databases easier. The most numerous changes in PostgreSQL 8.4 are new or improved administration and monitoring tools and commands.
Posted July 07, 2009
Oracle Corporation announced availability of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g, the next generation of the vendors' leading middleware product suite designed for service oriented architecture-based environments. Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g is an application infrastructure that now includes the WebLogic application server, originally offered by BEA Systems before the company was acquired by Oracle in 2008. The suite also includes a number of integrated and hot-pluggable components, including new capabilities in Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle WebLogic Suite, Oracle WebCenter Suite and Oracle Identity Management.
Posted July 07, 2009
Oracle today announced availability of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g. This new version of the middleware suite offers increased functionality across its product portfolio, including new capabilities in Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle WebLogic Suite, Oracle WebCenter Suite and Oracle Identity Management
Posted July 01, 2009
Oracle has extended the configuration management capabilities of Oracle Enterprise Manager, with new features that focus on managing application configurations. Oracle Enterprise Manager's "top-down" approach to application management enables customers to reduce complexity and increase efficiencies in their IT environments and optimally run their enterprise applications.
Posted July 01, 2009
With end of life approaching for Sybase ASE 12.5, Sybase today announced continuing momentum for the adoption of Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) 15, which was initially introduced in 2005 and has since been followed by three more feature releases, with another one scheduled for later this year.
Posted June 24, 2009
The first of Sybase's regional Sybase TechWave Symposia will be held in Washington, D.C., Aug. 26-27, at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel. Representing a departure from Sybase's previous approach of holding one major TechWave event annually, regional events are intended to provide an opportunity to get closer to customers and prospects and to tailor content and presentations to a specific audience. The format includes keynotes from Sybase's executive leadership team, business content, exhibits and a day and a half of technical sessions.
Posted June 24, 2009
Sybase has published a new book, The New Data Imperative: Managing Real-Time Risk in Capital Markets. Written by Sybase executives, Dr. Raj Nathan, senior vice president and chief marketing officer; Irfan Khan, chief technology officer; and Sinan Baskan, director of business development for financial markets, the book provides a forward-looking perspective into the data strategies that financial firms will need to implement to effectively manage risk and gain competitive advantage in the coming years.
Posted June 24, 2009
Oracle WebLogic Server, a strategic component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, together with Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle Database 11g running on a Dell PowerEdge server, has set a world record dual-node result with the SPECjAppServer2004 industry standard benchmark. "With this, we currently hold the world record in all three SPECjAppServer2004 categories—single node, dual-node and multi-node," Mike Piech, senior director with Oracle Fusion Middleware, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted June 17, 2009
EnterpriseDB, an enterprise open source database company, has announced the general availability of the latest version of Postgres Plus Advanced Server, the company's flagship RDBMS product, which is based on the PostgreSQL open source database (Postgres Plus). Postgres Plus Advanced Server is a commercially licensed product that adds enterprise-class functionality and increased performance to Postgres Plus. The latest version features the company's fifth-generation Oracle compatibility technology, new "Infinite Cache" that provides massive scalability at low cost by leveraging commodity hardware and eliminating custom programming, and "Asynchronous Pre-Fetch," a high-performance query solution that optimizes commodity RAID solutions and is well-suited for data warehouse and ETL queries.
Posted June 16, 2009
At the PASS Summit 2009 conference in Seattle, Wash., Nov. 2-5, 2009, the Professional Association for SQL Server will present by-invitation-only Spotlight sessions highlighting top presenters who have received high speaker ratings at past PASS Summits. Spotlight sessions are 90 minutes long, providing speakers with the opportunity to delve more deeply into their technical topics.
Posted June 16, 2009
This is a time of great change for data centers. Technology is advancing and getting smarter, and workloads and performance demands keep growing. For this issue of Database Trends and Applications, we sought a range of industry views on the most profound—and perhaps unexpected—changes reshaping data centers and enterprise it.
Posted June 15, 2009
Sybase turned in the best year in its history in 2008, followed by its best-ever first quarter in 2009. Brian Vink chats with Database Trends and Applications about what he sees as the key issues in information management, the company's partnership with SAP and the plans to revamp TechWave this year.
Posted June 15, 2009
There comes a time at the start of a new engagement when the data architect must acquaint himself with the system for the first time. When first learning about a new application, the relevant data, and its foundational concepts, many questions are reviewed.
Posted June 15, 2009
Before we even begin this month's column I had better define what I mean by a "black box." Simply put, a black box is a database access program that sits in-between your application programs and the DBMS. It is designed so that all application programs call the black box for data instead of writing SQL statements that are embedded into a program. The general idea behind such a contraption is that it will simplify application development because programmers will not need to know how to write SQL. Instead, programmers call the black box to request data. SQL statements become calls-and every programmer knows how to code a call, right?
Posted June 15, 2009
DBSophic, a Jerusalem, Israel-developer and marketer of software products for automatic identification and resolution of performance problems related to database systems, has released version 1.2 of its flagship product Qure, a solution for SQL Server database performance optimization
Posted June 09, 2009
IBM announced 12 of 30 new System z software offerings, designed to help improve developer productivity, increase business intelligence and data management capabilities, and improve transaction speeds.
Posted June 08, 2009
Ntirety Inc. has expanded its remote database services beyond Oracle and SQL Server to include MySQL, the open source database. Ntirety has assembled a team of expert MySQL database administrators to provide its signature "Database Administration As a Service" to customers utilizing the open source platform.
Posted June 03, 2009
Oracle and HP have set a world record for Oracle Database 11g Standard Edition One running on Oracle Enterprise Linux. With this result, Oracle now holds the top five record benchmark positions in the Top Ten TPC-C price/performance category.
Posted June 03, 2009
Ntirety Inc. has expanded its remote database services beyond Oracle and SQL Server to include MySQL, the open source database. Ntirety has assembled a team of expert MySQL database administrators to provide its signature "Database Administration As a Service" to customers utilizing the open source platform.
Posted June 02, 2009
Appeon Corporation has announced the latest version of Appeon for PowerBuilder, a leading web-enablement solution for Sybase PowerBuilder. Appeon for PowerBuilder provides a fast and low cost approach to web-enabling PowerBuilder applications, and according to Appion, version 6.2 is the most powerful and flexible version to date, offering enhanced PowerBuilder support, an updated user interface, and expanded platform support.
Posted May 27, 2009
Sybase, Inc., has announced the latest version of Sybase Replication Server, specifically designed to move and synchronize data across the enterprise. Some of the key megatrends in the industry that helped to form the product strategy for Replication Server 15 include the pressures on organizations caused by burgeoning data volumes combined with customers' increasing requirements for real-time business analytics, Bill Zhang, product manager for Replication Server, Sybase, tells 5 Minute Briefing. Additionally, he adds, "we are seeing ongoing global adoption of business applications that drive very strong demand in terms of how to integrate data in heterogeneous environments."
Posted May 27, 2009
EnterpriseDB, an open source database vendor, announced that IBM has licensed its technology to make it easier to deploy applications on DB2 9.7, the upcoming release of IBM's enterprise relational database. The solution is intended to make it easier to migrate applications from Oracle environments into open source or DB2 environments. The technology is among a set of capabilities in EnterpriseDB's Postgres Plus Advanced Server. These capabilities enable customers to run applications written for Oracle Database.
Posted May 20, 2009
At its recent TechEd conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft announced new innovations from the SQL Server team. The next release, SQL Server 2008 R2 (formerly SQL Server ‘Kilimanjaro'), is intended to empower end users to make better decisions through self-service business intelligence, and help IT drive greater efficiency and reduce costs through new capabilities such as multi-server management and Master Data Services. The first Community Technology Preview (CTP) of SQL Server 2008 R2 will be available in the second half of 2009 and Microsoft is on track to ship SQL Server 2008 R2 in the first half of calendar year 2010. In 2010, Microsoft will also introduce complex event processing for real-time insight into streaming information. This will offers customers and partners faster time to solution and equal or better performance than competitive alternatives to gain insight from streaming information.
Posted May 19, 2009
5 Minute Briefing: Data Integration had a chance to visit the COLLABORATE 09 conference for Oracle users in Orlando during the week of May 4. We conducted interviews with both Ian Abramson, the president of the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), and later with Raymond Payne, president of the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG).
Posted May 19, 2009
An inherent awkwardness exists in every many-to-many relationship between entities. Ambiguity causes this persistent awkwardness, primarily because a many-to-many relationship is such a fuzzy thing. In data discovery, encountering many-to-many relationships may actually expose a level of disregard about details by the subject matter experts.
Posted May 15, 2009
The economy is a wreck and things will likely get worse before they improve. Unemployment is even worse; almost 600,000 jobs were lost in January 2009, sending the unemployment rate to 7.6%, the highest it has been in 16 years. So many data professionals are out there looking for their next challenge … and more probably will be job hunting before the year is out.
Posted May 15, 2009
Sybase last week reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2009. Total revenue for the first quarter of 2009 increased to $267.5 million from $260.1 million in the first quarter of 2008. License revenue grew to $89.3 million compared to $78.1 million in the first quarter of 2008. Services revenue was $135.0 million, and messaging revenue was $43.3 million in the 2009 first quarter.
Posted April 28, 2009
EnterpriseDB, an open source database vendor, announced that IBM has licensed its technology to make it easier to deploy applications on DB2 9.7, the upcoming release of IBM's enterprise relational database. The solution is intended to make it easier to migrate applications from Oracle environments into open source or DB2 environments.
Posted April 28, 2009
IBM has announced version 9.7 of DB2 and InfoSphere Warehouse software, focused on transactional performance improvements in the DB2 database, and on expansion of analytics to XML data in the InfoSphere Data Warehouse. Both new products also reduce an even greater amount of space needed to store data, helping clients to gain significant savings on related costs including energy. This offering is also the industry's first database software that will deliver business analytics capabilities for both relational and XML data at the same time, according to IBM.
Posted April 28, 2009
EnterpriseDB, an open source database vendor, announced that IBM has licensed its technology to make it easier to deploy applications on DB2 9.7, the upcoming release of IBM's enterprise relational database. The solution is intended to make it easier to migrate applications from Oracle environments into open source or DB2 environments.
Posted April 27, 2009
Embarcadero Technologies, a database tools and developer software company, has introduced new and enhanced performance optimization tools to help companies detect, fix and prevent costly software errors. The tools include DB Optimizer 1.5 for SQL profiling and tuning, Performance Center for automated 24/7 database monitoring, and J Optimizer 2009 for Java profiling and optimization.
Posted April 23, 2009
Sybase yesterday reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2009. Total revenue for the first quarter of 2009 increased to $267.5 million from $260.1 million in the first quarter of 2008. License revenue grew to $89.3 million compared to $78.1 million in the first quarter of 2008. Services revenue was $135.0 million, and messaging revenue was $43.3 million in the 2009 first quarter.
Posted April 23, 2009
Bradmark Technologies, Inc., an established provider of enterprise monitoring and database administration tools, announced the release of Surveillance version 4.2 for Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) Cluster Edition. This release bolsters Bradmark's continuing development of its premier monitoring solution for Sybase data management products, enabling customers-including many that manage the world's most critical data-to cost-effectively maintain unprecedented performance and reliability.
Posted April 23, 2009
Visual Expert 6.0 now supports Sybase ASE, MS SQL Server, Oracle and PowerBuilder Code.It provides impact analysis and code exploration for all of these types of code.
Posted April 23, 2009
Sybase, Inc., announced that Sybase IQ 15, combined with Sun Microsystems' Sun Fire X4540 storage server and running the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), recorded the best price/performance result in the TPC-H benchmark at 3000 GB scale factor for all non-clustered systems. The benchmark simulates decision support systems that analyze large volumes of data, executes queries with a high degree of complexity, and gives answers to critical business questions. Sybase says that the achievement illustrates the effectiveness of Sybase IQ 15 in helping to optimize IT asset utilization and significantly reduce ownership costs.
Posted April 23, 2009
The Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) will hold two networking and education events for women in technology at the upcoming annual Oracle users group conference COLLABORATE 09. The Women in Technology Luncheon will take place from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Monday, May 4. This will be an opportunity to network, and for Oracle users, male and female, to learn firsthand about the experiences of women working in IT. The luncheon will feature speaker Cindy Novotny, a worldwide training and consulting leader, and the session will cover delegating, time management and taking personal responsibility for your own results.
Posted April 21, 2009
The Oracle Applications Users Group, the world's largest user knowledgebase for Oracle Applications users, is co-hosting COLLABORATE 09: Technology and Applications Forum for the Oracle Community conference with the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) and Quest International Users Group, May 3-7, at the Orange County Convention Center West in Orlando, Fla.
Posted April 21, 2009
Ingres Corporation, a leading open source database management company, has announced that it has joined the Open Source Channel Alliance, a group founded by Red Hat and SYNNEX Corporation to extend the value of open source to a broad set of customers through SYNNEX's 15,000 resellers. Ingres joins as a charter member and has signed a distribution agreement with SYNNEX.
Posted April 21, 2009
Oracle announced yesterday morning that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Sun Microsystems, on the heels of a breakdown of a proposed acquisition by IBM. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun's cash and debt.
Posted April 21, 2009
Oracle announced this morning that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Sun Microsystems, on the heels of a breakdown of a proposed acquisition by IBM. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun's cash and debt.
Posted April 20, 2009
Embarcadero Technologies, a database tools and developer software company, has introduced new and enhanced performance optimization tools to help companies detect, fix and prevent costly software errors. The tools include DB Optimizer 1.5 for SQL profiling and tuning, Performance Center for automated 24/7 database monitoring, and J Optimizer 2009 for Java profiling and optimization.
Posted April 16, 2009
DBI (Database-Brothers, Inc.), a software company providing professional grade database performance management tools, has announced the availability of release 7.1 of Brother-Owl—a tool to capture, analyze, and fix Oracle application SQL and indexes.
Posted April 16, 2009
BEZ Systems, a provider of predictive performance management (PPM) solutions for databases, has announced the availability of a new Performance as a Service (PaaS) program. Performance as a Service combines the BEZVision predictive performance software with in-depth knowledge and advice from database and performance experts to deliver advanced database performance intelligence. This combination allows IT departments to be more proactive in providing service delivery to their organizations, reduce costs, and improve IT efficiency so they can shift their focus toward providing business solutions and away from firefighting performance crises.
Posted April 16, 2009
In a relational database approach, regardless of whether one is considering persisted data or transitory query results, almost everything is viewed as a logical table. Associations between these envisioned tables are based on data values, versus the alternative to the pre-relational idea of linking multiple data structures via "hidden" pointers maintained by the system. Relationships among objects are ultimately derived from the semantics of a situation.
Posted April 15, 2009
Although the most important aspect of DBA tool selection is functionality and the way it satisfies your needs, the stability of the vendor that provides the product is also important
Posted April 15, 2009
The idea of "SQL Server in the cloud" is all the rage as I write this article. Many SQL Server experts already predict the demise of the IT data center and a complete upending of the current state of our industry, in which large enterprises can spend millions of dollars on SQL Server licenses, hardware and staff. I have to admit, when I first heard about this idea, I was ecstatic. What could be better for an enterprise than to have all the goodness of a SQL Server database with none of the hardware or staffing issues? However, on deeper examination, there is much about which to be cautious.
Posted April 15, 2009
Ed Boyajian joined EnterpriseDB, the open source database company whose products and services are based on PostgreSQL, in June, 2008, as president and CEO. Before that, he spent six years in sales leadership roles at Red Hat, including vice president and general manager for North American sales, and vice president, worldwide OEM and North American channels. Recently Boyajian chatted with DBTA about the looming challenges and opportunities for open source in general as well as for EnterpriseDB's Postgres Plus product family.
Posted April 15, 2009
Microsoft has announced that SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 is now available via free download to current SQL Server 2008 customers. According to the company, SP1 for SQL Server 2008 is primarily a roll-up of previous cumulative updates and offers increased supportability and stability. Microsoft is encouraging enterprise customers who are currently running SQL Server 2008 to download SP1 via the SQL Server 2008 Web site to take advantage of these improvements.
Posted April 14, 2009