amudi.org

5 Nov 2008

Data Masking

What is data masking?

Let me give you an example. You have developed this super-cool system, which can crunch big data instantly (just example). You show this to your client, and he wants a demo, using production-like data. But sometimes, you can't just copy the data as is, because it contains some confidential data, such as name, social security number, email address, etc. You need something like that data, but not exactly that one.

To protect the confidential data, one usually modifies that data (by UPDATE-ing all sensitive data to scramble it). I had experience like this, where we used dummy data, which contained people named "ABCDE". It's difficult to debug, because everything looked the same. Another way to do this is with data masking. With data masking, you could anonymize your data, and preserving its properties (length, field type, format). See the picture below.

Its main usage is for development and test environment, where people need production-like data, but constrained with confidential issues. Another example is when you want to outsource some parts of your system, you could provide test data without revealing your customers' phone numbers. I remember this one time, I worked as developer, and our test data contained data about people in a city who're customers of the only electricity company in this country (which is basically everyone). So, I was able to see who hadn't paid their electricity bill, who had the biggest spending in electricity, and their telephone numbers. Even for the test, we used production database, and tested the system by paying the electricity bill of certain people (they got free electricity for a month). I don't think they have policy on customers' confidential data, but I think they should, and if they do have that kind of policy, they're in big trouble. I don't want some outsource developers messed up electricity in my house, by changing my payment status, and the electricity company could cut off my electricity, and then the developers come to my house and laugh.

So, back to topic, Oracle has this product option for its database, called Data Masking. You should check it out.

Link:

http://www.oracle.com/enterprise_manager/data-masking.html

16 Oct 2008

Oracle SQL Developer Data Modelling Tools

It's a very nice tools, I think. Below is taken from the web page, with some highlights from me. Note that this is an Early Adopter release.

Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeling is the latest product offering to join the Oracle Database Tools suite. SQL Developer Data Modeling offers a full spectrum of data and database modeling tools and utilities, including Entity Relationship modeling, Relational (Database Design), Data Type and Multidimensional modeling, full forward and reverse engineering and code generation. It includes importing from and exporting to a variety of sources and targets, provides a variety of formatting options and validates the models through a predefined set of Design Rules.

SQL Developer Data Modeling can connect to any Oracle Database version 9.2.0.1 and later, and is platform independent. Initially available as a standalone product, with future releases available as an extension to Oracle SQL Developer. The first Early Adopter release is stand alone and file-based only

Awesome !!

Links:

9 Oct 2008

What is it like working at Oracle

Stories from Oracle Australia and New Zealand about working in Applications Business Development team and Middleware Sales team.

Link: http://oraclerecruiter.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-it-is-like-working-at-oracle.html

8 Oct 2008

Oracle Beehive

Oracle Beehive is the next-generation collaboration suite from Oracle. Integrated, complete, open-standards and secure are the keywords. It consists of several tools for collaboration, such as instant messaging, web conferencing, and calendar tools. Users can access all the informations securely via web-based interface (Zimbra for email if I'm not mistaken), or with a commonly-used tools such as MS Outlook, Thunderbird (and a plugin to access the calendar features), pidgin (for instant messaging via XMPP protocol). Oracle Beehive also can coexists with other technology such as Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes. It is hot-pluggable, meaning organizations can just plug it into their existing database and applications, and embed collaboration tools to their business.

By the way, Oracle offers a 30-days complimentary trial. The trial software will be delivered on-demand, meaning it will be hosted by Oracle, and users will be given 5 accounts to give Oracle Beehive a try. So, head here for more info.

Source & for more info:

http://www.oracle.com/products/middleware/beehive/index.html

25 Sep 2008

HP Oracle Database Machine

Hardware by HP, Software by Oracle

Extreme performance
Unlimited scalability
Enterprise ready

For more info: http://www.oracle.com/solutions/business_intelligence/database-machine.html

16 Sep 2008

About Oracle Tech and Apps

Hello again,

This time I want to write about something I learned after I got into
Oracle. Most people know Oracle by its database, which is still the
market leader until now. But, Oracle also has middleware (i.e. Oracle
Fusion Middleware), and a lot of application for various industries.
This segmentation follow the concept of "three-tier architecture",
which is a term for "database, application server, web browser / other
visualization".

Database is, well, you know, store whatever data you want to store,
mostly in tables. Oracle database also has some "enhancements" called
"Database Options". These database "enhancements" are optional
products, which if you "apply" it, your database can do more than just
storing and retrieving data. One example of this are functionality
such as clustering (called "Grid" by Oracle, another terms for
"running one database in a lot of computers").

Middleware is, for me, the most confusing one. In essential,
middleware is an application server. For example, you code some php
programs, and you put your files in a directory, in a computer which
runs a web server, that's a middleware (in the most simple form).
Middleware runs the logic on your code, accessing your data, and give
the data to your applications. Actually, some people like to think
that middleware is everything else which is not database or
applications.

Applications, is the one people interacting with. Most Oracle
Applications runs on web browser. Most Informatics Engineering major
people like me usually thinks application as a stand-alone software
that you can install such as PaintBrush, iTunes, or some other little
program that I code, etc. But in enterprise terms, application is a
big software, used by a lot of people, to access a lot of complicated
stuffs such as ordering stuffs from your supplier, generating
financial reports for tax, submitting data about a new employee, and
so on. Those applications runs somewhere in the company, accessed by
everyone with web browser, in real time (not so real actually,
sometimes it's very slow). In simple term, web application. For
applications, Oracle has application suite such as Oracle e-Business
Suite, JD Edwards, and PeopleSoft, and all those names comes with a
lot of modules inside, for many industries (from banks to factories to
mobile network providers).

That's all for now :)