Database Management Articles
The term "big data" refers to the massive amounts of data being generated on a daily basis by businesses and consumers alike - data which cannot be processed using conventional data analysis tools owing to its sheer size and, in many case, its unstructured nature. Convinced that such data hold the key to improved productivity and profitability, enterprise planners are searching for tools capable of processing big data, and information technology providers are scrambling to develop solutions to accommodate new big data market opportunities.
Posted May 22, 2012
SAP AG has announced a range of innovations. The announcements put heavy emphasis on SAP HANA, and focus on three main areas, David Jonker, director of product marketing - Data Management & Analytics, SAP, tells 5 Minute Briefing. One is working with customers to accelerate their existing investment in the SAP landscape, a second emphasis is big data and analytics, and the third is around sparking new innovation by working with customers, partners and startups to leverage real-time analytics to rethink how business gets done.
Posted May 16, 2012
Organizations are struggling with big data, which they define as any large-size data store that becomes unmanageable by standard technologies or methods, according to a new survey of 264 data managers and professionals who are subscribers to Database Trends and Applications. The survey was conducted by Unisphere Research, a division of Information Today, Inc., in partnership with MarkLogic in January 2012. Among the key findings uncovered by the survey is the fact that unstructured data is on the rise, and ready to engulf current data management systems. Added to that concern, say respondents, is their belief that management does not understand the challenge that is looming, and is failing to recognize the significance of unstructured data assets to the business.
Posted May 09, 2012
DBI, a software company providing database performance management tools, has announced Brother-Panther version 5.2. The new release of the performance monitoring, tuning, and trending tool incorporates several new customer requested enhancements, lower overhead, support for DB2 10, and support for the z/Linux operating system.
Posted May 09, 2012
Red Gate has announced that its SQL Server development tools now support SQL Server on Amazon RDS, the latest cloud-based database offering from Amazon. In addition, the company says, its SQL Developer Bundle also supports Amazon RDS, enabling users to continue to compare, manage, and deploy their schemas and data with their regular tools, even when they are moving between RDS and other SQL Server instances.
Posted May 09, 2012
Big data has become a big topic for 2012. It's not only the size, but also the complexity of formats and speed of delivery of data that is starting to exceed the capabilities of traditional data management technologies, requiring the use of new or exotic technologies simply to manage the volume alone. In recent years, the democratization of analytics and business intelligence (BI) solutions has become a major driving force for data warehousing, resulting in the use of self-service data marts. One major implication of big data is that in the future, users will not be able to put all useful information into a single data warehouse. Logical data warehouses bringing together information from multiple sources as needed is replacing the single data warehouse model. Combined with the fact that enterprise IT departments are continually moving towards distributed computing environments, the need for IT process automation to automate and execute the integration and movement of data between these disparate sources is more important than ever.
Posted May 09, 2012
There has been a significant change in the IT world recently; solution developers no longer believe the answer to all data management challenges is a relational database. After 40 years, data management was considered to be a quiet part of IT where the products and providers were firmly decided. It is evident that information management has again become quite dynamic with a broad set of solutions offering new options for managing the big data challenges of today.
Posted May 09, 2012
It seems only reasonable that what one person can do, others can learn. On the other hand, taking people through training does not usually result in the creation of great new database administrators (DBAs). It often appears as if those who are exceptional at the craft operate at higher levels as they dive into a problem. Can training alone provide folks with the attention to detail, the urge to keep digging, or the ability to recall minutiae that allow them to rise from simply holding the DBA title to becoming someone who is a great DBA? Or must the genetic potential exist first, and then one might fall into the DBA occupation and astound those around them. It is very hard to say with any degree of certainty whether great DBAs are made or born; yet again the battle between nature and nurture arises.
Posted May 09, 2012
Every now and then some sage consultant will offer advice like "Large tables should be partitioned" or "Be sure to use static SQL for your applications with high volume transaction workloads." But how useful is this advice? What do they mean by large and high volume? Terms such as these are nebulous and ever changing. Just what is a large database today?
Posted May 09, 2012
The Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG), will co-host the OAUG Connection Point - Release 12.1/Fusion Applications conference, in partnership with the South Texas Oracle Applications Users Group (STOAUG) and the OAUG Upgrade SIG, July 11-12 at the Omni Austin Hotel Downtown in Austin, Tex. The call for presentations for the event is open through May 10.
Posted May 03, 2012
Confio Software introduced its Ignite 8.2 database performance software during last week's COLLABORATE Conference in Las Vegas. The rapidly-growing company based in Boulder, Colo., has tripled in size during the past 3 years, delivering tools that identify, pinpoint and resolve pain points in Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, and Sybase under the theme of "Keep it simple and get to the problem in four clicks."
Posted May 01, 2012
Embarcadero Technologies has introduced a new version of its database management and development platform, DB Power Studio XE3, which offers enhancements to further improve the performance and availability of databases.
Posted May 01, 2012
Oracle addressed the need to make IT infrastructure and business analytics technologies simpler and more efficient in a presentation to OpenWorld Tokyo 2012 attendees that was also made available via live webcast. In addition to presenting its strategy and plans for business analytics, the company also unveiled new additions to its product portfolio. In his keynote address, Oracle president Mark Hurd explained how the business users of tomorrow will require faster and more comprehensive information access. "The true question with analytics is how to get the right information to the right person at the right time to make the right decision," he said.
Posted April 26, 2012
IBM has introduced DB2 10 and InfoSphere Warehouse 10 software that integrates with big data systems, automatically compresses data into tighter spaces to prevent storage sprawl, and slices information from the past, present, and future to eliminate expensive application code. Over the past 4 years, more than 100 clients, 200 business partners, and hundreds of experts from IBM Research and Software Development Labs around the world collaborated to develop the new software.
Posted April 26, 2012
Quest Software has released version 11.5 of its Toad for Oracle software, the flagship product in the Toad portfolio of productivity software for database developers, DBAs, and analysts. Drawing on community feedback from their two million users, Quest has introduced a number of new features and improvements, most notably a new social intelligence component. Toad for Oracle 11.5, Quest contends, will allow users to take advantage of the best ideas and practices from the community and further increase user productivity.
Posted April 25, 2012
EMC Corporation has announced new EMC Data Domain Boost (DD Boost) integration with Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN). DD Boost software provides advanced integration between EMC Data Domain deduplication storage systems and applications for faster, more efficient backup and recovery. The DD Boost software distributes part of the deduplication process to the Oracle database server and enables RMAN to directly manage Data Domain replication. "This is important because with this new announcement, it really brings complete control of Oracle backup and disaster recovery to the Oracle database administrators," Rob Emsley, senior director of product marketing for EMC's Backup Recovery Systems division, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted April 25, 2012
SAP unveiled its roadmap for the database and mobile markets. At a press conference in San Francisco that was also made available online, Dr. Vishal Sikka, a member of the SAP executive Board, Technology & Innovation, said the company's vision for the SAP real-time data platform includes the SAP HANA platform, Sybase data management offerings, and SAP solutions for enterprise information management (EIM). "In our minds, and in our customers' minds there is now absolutely no doubt that HANA represents the database architecture for the future, for OLTP and OLAP, for analyzing structured and unstructured data, for legacy applications and for new applications," Sikka told the audience.
Posted April 25, 2012
Sybase has announced that Ford Motor Company will centralize all of its logical and physical modeling functions with SAP Sybase PowerDesigner, the data modeling software and metadata management solution for data, information, and enterprise architectures. The solution provides the capability to generate Data Description Language (DDL) for Ford Motor Company's database platforms, including all of the leading databases like Sybase ASE, DB2, SQL Server, Teradata and Oracle.
Posted April 25, 2012
For 2012, the traditional TechWave content will be incorporated into the SAP TechEd conference, taking place October 15-19 at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, NV. The event will continue to deliver targeted training on Sybase products plus offer attendees access to SAP TechEd keynote sessions, exhibits, special events and other networking functions.
Posted April 25, 2012
Database Week, a follow-on to the Database Month conference held this year in January, will be presented May 14 through May 23 in New York City. Described by Eric David Benari, chairman of the event, as a "database festival," the upcoming conference sessions are focused on four main categories of technology: big data, NoSQL, NewSQL, and Hadoop. Like Database Month, Database Week is being spearheaded by the NYC MySQL group but is database technology-agnostic, Benari tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted April 19, 2012
Delphix has introduced the latest release of its database virtualization software for agile data management, which adds new support for Oracle Exadata, and also extends support for legacy versions of Oracle databases to support customers who want to upgrade and migrate from old to new.
Posted April 18, 2012
Oracle plans to hold a MySQL conference on September 29 and 30, just prior to Oracle OpenWorld 2012, which will be held in San Francisco from September 30 to October 4. In addition, Oracle has announced a new Development Milestone Release (DMR) for MySQL 5.6.
Posted April 18, 2012
Oracle has announced StorageTek Tape Analytics, monitoring and management software for its StorageTek tape libraries. The software is intended to simplify tape management by eliminating manual intervention and help improve operational efficiency. It captures library, drive and media performance metrics and presents them in a single pane of glass, identifying potential problems while providing immediate recommendations to prevent data loss. StorageTek Tape Analytics software also allows rapid drill-down into detailed drive and media health specifics, enabling customers to make decisions about their tape infrastructure, and reduce downtime and data management resources.
Posted April 18, 2012
Organizations are populated with solutions entitled DW, EDW, BIC, ODS, EIW, IW, CIF, or BW. Why must every organization have a data warehousing or analytics solution identified by monikers from a very limited pool of choices? Why must every deployment of a database that is expected to function as an operational data store be called ODS? For internal solutions it seems that plain and dreary naming approaches are de rigueur. Two and three letter acronyms have long been a part of corporate-speak; but when it comes to IT systems, these TLAs have become exceedingly narrow and soul-less.
Posted April 18, 2012
Continuent, Inc., a provider of replication and clustering solutions for MySQL and Oracle, has introduced Continuent Tungsten Enterprise 1.5 to help manage increasing data volume, complexity, speed, and concurrency in the cloud or on-premise. "Tungsten Enterprise consolidates geo-clustering, archive, backup and disaster recovery through seamless integration with the cloud," says Robert Hodges, CEO at Continuent. "By combining multi-master, multi-site clustering with Amazon EC2, Tungsten Enterprise enables new levels of speed, simplicity and reliability for database clustering, backup and recovery while reducing costs."
Posted April 12, 2012
IBM introduced PureSystems, a new family of "expert integrated systems," with built-in expertise based on IBM's decades of experience running IT operations for tens of thousands of clients in 170 countries. With the aim of integrating all IT elements, both physical and virtual, IBM says the new systems offer clients an alternative to today's enterprise computing model, where multiple and disparate systems require significant resources to set up and maintain. According to IBM, PureSystems is the result of $2 billion in R&D and acquisitions over 4 years.
Posted April 11, 2012
Oracle extended its Business Analytics portfolio, with the announcement of two new Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, Oracle Manufacturing Analytics and Oracle Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) Analytics. According to Oracle, these are the first and only analytic applications for manufacturing and asset management analysis and will enable customers and partners serving manufacturing, energy production, utilities and other asset-intensive industries to gain better insights and make decisions faster. Oracle says both solutions provide support for large numbers of concurrent users and are certified to run on Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine. Native support for tablet and mobile devices, such as the Apple iPad and iPhone is also provided.
Posted April 11, 2012
Oracle announced two x86 world record benchmark results delivered by its software and hardware. An x86 world record result was achieved on the SPECjEnterprise2010 benchmark, with Oracle WebLogic Server 12c, Oracle Database 11g Release 2, running Oracle Linux on Oracle's Sun Fire X4800 M2 server. In addition, an x86 world record TPC-C benchmark result was set with the Sun Fire X4800 M2 server, running Oracle Linux with the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 2, Oracle Tuxedo, and Oracle Database 11g Release 2.
Posted April 11, 2012
Last month, I told you about my favorite master-level blogs for the SQL Server professional. This month, I'm reviewing my favorite blogs for working SQL Server professionals who seriously want to grow their skills. What's the difference between a master-level blog and a practitioner-level blog, you ask?
Posted April 11, 2012
An important aspect of database security is designing your applications to avoid SQL injection attacks. SQL injection is a form of web hacking whereby SQL statements are specified in the fields of a web form to cause a poorly designed web application to dump database content to the attacker. Stories abound in the news where SQL injection was used for nefarious purposes. Several high-profile cases over the past few years impacted government websites, Microsoft in the U.K., a Swedish election, PBS (the Public Broadcasting System), and Lady Gaga's website (among many others).
Posted April 11, 2012
Attivio and TIBCO Software Inc. have announced that, as part of a new partnership agreement, the TIBCO Spotfire analytics platform has achieved the highest level of information access available within Attivio's Active Intelligence Engine (AIE). According to Attivio, its AIE ingests all types of structured data and unstructured content, and unlike a traditional data warehouse, does not require relationships between any data or content to be defined in advance prior to ingestion. In achieving platinum-level certification, Attivio says TIBCO Spotfire has been authenticated by Attivio to be able to present, analyze, access and leverage AIE's AI-SQL capabilities to provide data visualization, enhanced analytics of unstructured content and intuitive search and discovery, all in the same dashboard.
Posted April 10, 2012
Oracle Corporation announced that GAAP total revenues for fiscal 2012 Q3, which ended Feb. 28, were up 3% to $9.0 billion, and non-GAAP total revenues were up 3% to $9.1 billion. Among the highlights for the quarter were Oracle's engineered systems. Hardware revenue for engineered systems grew 139% in the third quarter and bookings are strong going into the fourth quarter, said Oracle president Mark Hurd in a statement released by the company with the announcement of its quarterly financial results.
Posted April 04, 2012
Organizational focus has been placed on the emergence of "big data" - large-scale data sets that businesses and governments use to create new value with today's computing and communications power. Big data poses many opportunities, but managing the rapid growth adds challenges, including complexity and cost. Leaders must address the implications of big data, increasing volume and detail of information captured by enterprises, the rise of multimedia, social media, and the internet.
Posted April 04, 2012
For 2012, the traditional TechWave content will be incorporated into SAP TechEd, October 15-19 at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, NV. There will continue to be targeted training on Sybase products, plus access to TechEd keynote sessions, exhibits, special event and other networking functions.
Posted March 29, 2012
Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (R2) and Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g Release 1 (R1) are immediately available on Oracle Linux 6 with the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel. Oracle Database 11g R2 and Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g R1 will be available on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (RHEL6) and Oracle Linux 6 with the Red Hat Compatible Kernel in 90 days.
Posted March 28, 2012
Oracle has announced that its Sun ZFS Storage 7320 appliance has extended its storage leadership by delivering outstanding performance on the SPECsfs2008_nfs benchmark. The Sun ZFS Storage 7320 appliance achieved 134,140 SPEC SFS2008_nfs ops/sec at an Overall Response Time of 1.51 milliseconds for file serving in a mixed workload environment. "This SPECsfs2008 result is further proof that the Sun ZFS Storage Appliance delivers a significant increase in performance at a fraction of the cost of competitive solutions,"says Phil Bullinger, senior vice president, Storage, Oracle.
Posted March 28, 2012
There's no question that cloud computing is a hot commodity these days. Companies of all types and sizes are embracing cloud computing-both internally and from external service providers - as a way to cost-effectively build new capabilities. With the rapid growth of cloud comes new questions about responsibility within organizations, in terms of how services will be paid for, who has ultimate say over cloud decisions, and how cloud fits into the overall strategic direction of the business.
Posted March 28, 2012
Citrusleaf, a real-time, distributed NoSQL database technology provider, has announced the immediate availability of Cross Datacenter Replication (XDR), a new product that enables flexibility for running real-time applications easily and seamlessly from different data centers. XDR runs on Citrusleaf 2.0, the company's flagship database platform for high-volume, data-intensive, web-scale and mobile businesses such as digital advertising.
Posted March 28, 2012
Clinical Data Management (CDM) is a company headquartered in Colorado that provides clinical information database software, enabling medical institutions to report and compile data on patient care. A longtime user of Revelation Software, dating back to Revelation G and continuing through OpenInsight, CDM was pleased with both the quality of the products and the service from Revelation. However, CDM had come to realize it needed to provide a web interface for data entry to better support its customers and also stay current with evolving technology requirements. That need was answered when Revelation launched the OpenInsight for Web (O4W) Development Toolkit, a web development toolkit that makes it possible for OpenInsight developers with limited or no HTML, XML or JavaScript experience to develop feature-rich web pages.
Posted March 28, 2012
Schooner Information Technology, Inc., a developer of high-availability, high-performance SQL database software, has released the latest version of its software cache and persistent data store, Membrain 4.0. Running on Dell, HP, and IBM x86 servers and optimized to take advantage of flash memory and modern multi-core processors, the latest release of Membrain aims to deliver 10x server consolidation, thus simplifying capacity and performance scale out in data centers.
Posted March 27, 2012
RainStor, a provider of big data management software, is joining with IBM in the big data market. RainStor will work with IBM to deliver a solution that combines IBM's enterprise-class, Hadoop-based product, InfoSphere BigInsights, with RainStor's Big Data Analytics on Hadoop product to enable faster, more flexible analytics on multi-structured data, without the need to move data out of the Hadoop environment. According to the vendors, the new combined solution can reduce the TCO for customers by significantly reducing physical storage, and also improving the performance of querying and analyzing big data sets across the enterprise.
Posted March 27, 2012
MarkLogic Corporation has joined the technology partner program of Hortonworks, a leading vendor promoting the development and support of Apache Hadoop. According to the vendors, by leveraging MarkLogic and Hortonworks, organizations will be able to seamlessly combine the power of MapReduce with MarkLogic's real-time, interactive analysis and indexing on a single, unified platform. There are two main reasons that MarkLogic has chosen to partner with Hortonworks, says Justin Makeig, senior product manager at MarkLogic. One is Hortenworks' extensive experience with Hadoop installations and the second is that its core product is 100% open source.
Posted March 21, 2012
As IT departments strive to lower costs while operating more efficiently organizations are seeking efficient ways to ensure that data in their VMware environments is properly protected, according to Quest Software and ExaGrid Systems, which are marketing a joint virtual data protection solution. Using Quest vRanger in tandem with ExaGrid's disk backup appliance, the vendors say, provides customers with an efficient, disk-based backup solution tailored to meet the specific needs of VMware virtual environments.
Posted March 20, 2012
For enterprises grappling with the onslaught of big data, a new platform has emerged from the open source world that promises to provide a cost-effective way to store and process petabytes and petabytes worth of information. Hadoop, an Apache project, is already being eagerly embraced by data managers and technologists as a way to manage and analyze mountains of data streaming in from websites and devices. Running data such as weblogs through traditional platforms such as data warehouses or standard analytical toolsets often cannot be cost-justified, as these solutions tend to have high overhead costs. However, organizations are beginning to recognize that such information ultimately can be of tremendous value to the business. Hadoop packages up such data and makes it digestible.
Posted March 19, 2012