Davidstech’s Weblog

…for intelligent information management

Archive for October, 2008

Automated Cloning

Posted by davidstech on October 21, 2008

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It is a common fact that most database applications store company’s confidential details such as employee information, client information, company’s financial details etc. Most often these details need to be shared with developers and others while providing production support for upgrades, training, outsourcing etc. As a result there is a great risk of this data being used for unlawful activities. Creating data masking is a labor intensive and manual process where servers, applications and storage devices are configured for each new clone, an inefficient process for a routine data center activity. By automating the cloning and post-cloning processes, clones are created and configured faster and with fewer errors.

Most experts conclude up to 80% of production data is no longer mission critical; using data archiving reduces overall storage costs while maintaining access through the native application. Relocate 50% of the inactive data from your production database to a secure online data archive.

Data archiving solutions automates the archive and purge process by offloading underutilized data from the production environment, ensuring good operational performance during heavy load times such as the quarter end.

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Mask Sensitive Data

Posted by davidstech on October 17, 2008

Database cloning is a practical solution for the problem of protecting sensitive information that is shared while providing production support for upgrades, patching, testing etc. It has several options for reducing security risk. One such is that it creates clones of databases which would be smaller than the actual one by copying only the required data. It also has an option of creating a template that contains only the required information.

Application retirement allows organizations to implement Data migration projects across applications: Legacy, Mainframe, BaaN, JDE, PeopleSoft, Siebel Oracle, SAP, etc. while allowing changes to chart of accounts, organization structure, costing methods, etc.

Database archiving automates the archive and purge process by offloading underutilized data from the production environment, ensuring good operational performance during heavy load times such as the quarter end. Utilizing database archiving to actively manage the growth of application data is the key to managing data for its value to the organization.

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Data Management Solutions

Posted by davidstech on October 17, 2008

Data privacy allows the organization to share data while maintaining confidentiality and integrity. Control Management and Configuration Management are key players here. Necessary access controls, password management, version control and track changes are vital in protecting data privacy. Software organizations that follow CMM or ISO have inbuilt control and configuration processes in them. With or without processes, data privacy must be handled with care and concern for customer satisfaction.

Data privacy protection in non-production environments is an important step in the IT governance chain that will keep your sensitive data private and your corporate reputation intact.

Application sunsetting and migration tool utilizes an archive engine of enterprise data management suite instead of traditional ETL tools. This allows faster, seamless, and controlled data migration while implementing information lifecycle management by storing current data on high availability storage tiers, historical data on cheaper storage tiers and the data that is no longer needed to be accessed online, is stored in offline storage such as optical, magnetic, and similar media.

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Optimize Application Portfolio

Posted by davidstech on October 15, 2008

Often many applications, which were yielding good results for the companies, become outmoded when organizations grow, merge or strengthen their operations; since not much attention is paid to maintain these applications. Application retirement is the best solution for doing away with disused applications as they expend a lot of resources, storage etc while benefiting the organization very little.

Enterprise data management offer streamline information management, security and automate data storage and retrieval to enable compliance and e-Discovery through long term data retention, data masking, database audit and enterprise search.

Many corporations depend on Oracle E-Business suite archiving to record and store mission critical information. Over time, the load from millions of transactions added daily to the system weighs heavily on application servers, impacting performance and report response rates.

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Compliant Cloning & Database Encryption for Non-Production Environments

Posted by davidstech on October 15, 2008

It is a common fact that most database applications store company’s confidential details such as employee information, client information, company’s financial details etc. Most often these details need to be shared with developers and others while providing production support for upgrades, training, outsourcing etc. As a result there is a great risk of this data being used for unlawful activities. Data masking helps in protecting data in less secure environments.

Data archiving ensures database performance is optimized for the business need while creating savings in storage and data maintenance activities. Users of Oracle E-Business Suite, Baan, Oracle JD Edwards, Oracle PeopleSoft, Siebel and more benefit a great deal by enterprise data archiving.

Data archiving solutions helps in reinstating the application’s performance to 50% by archiving inactive data. It enables in improving and reducing storage and IT costs. Users of Oracle E-Business Suite, Baan, Oracle JD Edwards, Oracle PeopleSoft, Siebel and more benefit a great deal by data archiving solutions.

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Data Masking Reduces Risk of Privacy Violations

Posted by davidstech on October 13, 2008

Data masking is a proven strategy to obscure specific fields that identify an individual, potentially exposing customers or employees to identity theft or other forms of privacy invasion. Utilizing data privacy Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite to scramble, encrypt, shuffle or otherwise mask names, addresses, credit card numbers, salaries, or social security numbers; privacy is ensured and relational integrity is maintained.

Data privacy protection manages multiple applications metadata for all data types independent of the hardware platforms through a unified policy manager. Data privacy allows the organization to share data while maintaining confidentiality and integrity. Control Management and Configuration Management are key players here. Necessary access controls, password management, version control and track changes are vital in protecting data privacy.

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Securely Manage Test Data and Development Processes

Posted by davidstech on October 13, 2008

Database cloning creates a database template and restores or inserts only the transactions or modules needed. The Insert Method for database cloning allows IT organizations to create subsets much faster as only the data needed for the test is cloned, resulting in a faster cloning process and reduced storage requirement. Whichever subset method is used, referential integrity is maintained. Database cloning is therefore very helpful in protecting data in less secure environments.

Data migration is a metadata based tool that allows companies to map metadata between applications and create conversion rules for faster and seamless data migration. It acts as an efficient project accelerator for migrations of any nature.

Using database archiving reduces overall storage costs while maintaining access through the native application. This provides a complete solution for all enterprise data archiving needs. Most experts conclude up to 80% of production data is no longer mission critical.

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Viable Strategy for Eliminating Redundant Legacy Applications

Posted by davidstech on October 4, 2008

Application retirement is a viable strategy for eliminating redundant legacy applications, thereby improving operational efficiency and reducing costs.  By reducing the number of applications within the IT infrastructure, DBAs can concentrate on maintaining critical business applications with the highest value to the organization, instead of compiling data from disparate sources. Enterprise data management application provides companies with a centralized solution to manage the test data management process for clone creation, productivity and data security.

With e-Business suite archiving organizations can create and deploy effective and consistent policies for managing, securing and storing data from a single console. The result is improved application performance and availability through smaller production database sizes, shorter backup and recovery times, reduced labor costs to maintain the production system and lower storage costs.

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Ensuring Data Security through Masking

Posted by davidstech on October 4, 2008

Many organizations have tried alternative approaches to archiving, such as running batch reports during downtime, purchasing faster hardware or purging data by completely removing data from access. None of these strategies fully address the challenges of database growth and the need for long term data retention. Data archiving is an efficient solution to enhance application performance through smaller production database sizes, shorter backup and recovery times, reduced labor costs to maintain the production system and lower storage costs.

Data masking provides companies with a centralized solution to manage the test data management process for clone creation, productivity and data security. As a result, there is a great risk of this data being used for unlawful activities. Data masking helps in protecting data in less secure environments.

Data archiving solutions enables in improving and reducing storage and IT costs. Enterprise database archiving restores application performance by up to 50% by relocating inactive data from the production database to a secure online data archive.

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