|
AT ORACLE: Briefs
Oracle Fusion Middleware Delivers Enhanced Support for Microsoft
Many organizations rely on a mix of vendor technologies throughout their computing environments, and a significant number of Oracle Fusion Middleware customers run on Windows and deploy Java and .NET-based applications and services. Oracle has extended Oracle Fusion Middleware's support for Microsoft environments, including Windows, .NET/Windows Server System, and Microsoft Office.
Oracle has created a best-practices guide for developers who want to integrate Microsoft Office applications with enterprise applications by leveraging Oracle Fusion Middleware. Enterprises can increase productivity by reducing duplicate data entry and improve total cost of ownership by minimizing specialized training for disparate systems.
"We are dedicated to providing our customers with the market's most extensible, open middleware offering to help ensure they derive the most value from their business applications," says Vijay Tella, vice president and chief strategy officer, Oracle. "Our extended support for Microsoft strengthens an organization's ability to leverage Oracle Fusion Middleware's best-in-class, standards-based middleware components regardless of their Microsoft investments."
Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g Eases Network Searches
Now shipping, Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g is a comprehensive, standalone search engine that enables customers to make critical business information available to authorized users while enforcing corporate security policies. It delivers high-quality search results from a range of data sources including databases, file systems, enterprise content management systems, portals, e-mail systems, and applications.
Tuned for the enterprise, Oracle Secure Enterprise Search 10g offers search algorithms that can utilize existing business metadata to improve the relevance of search results. It also features a fast installation process, a simple Web interface for efficient administration and management, and an easy-to-use search interface. Additionally, users can access the search engine through Web-based user interfaces and perform traditional keyword searches.
"Enterprises have unique search requirements that differ from those of consumer search," says Sue Feldman, research vice president, IDC. "Secure access to multiple repositories, file formats, data, and content is a necessary component. So, too, are ease-of-use, single point of access, and integration with other major enterprise applications. As enterprise search becomes more mission-critical to information-intensive organizations, they will want it to come with the same scalability, reliability, and global support that they now expect from the rest of their IT infrastructure."
Oracle Database Vault Targets Insider Threats and Compliance
Organizations today must adhere to regulatory requirements such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, and a host of other compliance and privacy regulations while establishing stronger security protections, particularly against "the insider threat." Protecting against this threat means enforcing stricter access controls on applications and databases from "insiders" who, in some cases, have unrestricted access, such as database administrators and other highly privileged users. Similarly, enforcing separation of duties among these users to ensure that they have access only to those applications they need for performing their job is key for meeting regulatory compliance requirements. Oracle Database Vault, a new Oracle Database security product, addresses both of these needs.
Oracle Database Vault provides applications with protections similar to a bank safe by preventing DBAs from accessing all applications residing on a single database. It places strict controls on DBAs by providing flexible and adaptable security controls to specific application access, restricting access to only that necessary to perform their jobs. Historically, organizations have given the DBA and other superusers tremendous trust while acknowledging the potential liability if such superusers prove to be untrustworthy. Oracle Database Vault removes the risk of abuse of superuser privileges by introducing new concepts called realms, factors, and rules that place incremental restrictions on the data a superuser can access, including contextual parameters such as time of day or location that further restrict access. Such controls help organizations conform to internal policies as well as security requirements mandated by regulations.
Oracle Database Vault can be used with other Oracle Database security technologies and is planned for availability before the end of this fiscal year.
Oracle Secure Backup Unveiled
Now available, Oracle Secure Backup offers high-performance and secure data protection by encrypting data that is backed up to offline media. Data stored in offline devices such as tape is vulnerable to theft and loss. Encrypting data as it is copied to tape ensures that sensitive and critical data is protected even in the event of theft.
"Oracle Secure Backup provides the industry's most secure tape backup management for your entire Oracle environment at the lowest cost," says Willie Hardie, vice president of database product marketing, Oracle.
Oracle Secure Backup supports more than 200 tape devices, from legacy and popular systems to the latest high-performance tape drives. Oracle Secure Backup can be controlled and administered using Oracle Enterprise Manager and is available on Windows, Linux, and UNIX.
Linux Community Endorses Oracle Cluster File System
Oracle's enterprise-class cluster file system, Oracle Cluster File System Release 2 (OCFS Release 2), will be distributed with the Linux kernel, providing users with an open source alternative to proprietary cluster file systems.
"The endorsement of OCFS 2 by the Linux community represents a significant milestone for Oracle and demonstrates how Oracle's continued contributions are driving adoption of open source technologies," says Andrew Morton, Linux 2.6 kernel maintainer.
OCFS Release 2 will be included in the mainline Linux kernel 2.6.16 and is already supported on the SUSE Linux Enterprise platform from Novell and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.
Designed to work as a seamless addition to the Linux kernel, OCFS Release 2 eases system management while improving performance. It enables all nodes in a cluster to concurrently access a given file system, allowing for simplified management of databases that are shared across a cluster. OCFS Release 2 also includes expanded capabilities to run nondatabase, standard file system operations, providing additional value as a general-purpose file management system.
Oracle Content DB Eases Management of Unstructured Content
Oracle Content DB, a new Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition option, addresses the challenges of managing unstructured content.
Unstructured content—documents, presentations, spreadsheets, digital images—is typically stored in multiple locations, which makes it difficult to find, creates uncertainty about the content source, and impacts user productivity. This content also complicates compliance efforts by requiring policies to be implemented multiple times for different environments, and it is at risk of being lost, nonrecoverable, or falling into the hands of inappropriate users. Unmanaged content generates redundant copies, and this proliferation causes physical storage and management costs to increase unnecessarily.
Oracle Content DB addresses these problems by enabling users to easily store, secure, share, search, and manage unstructured content in an enterprise-scalable content repository: Oracle Database. Unstructured content can easily be integrated into critical business processes, and policy constraints such as access control and document retention can be applied to help manage discovery risk and ensure regulatory compliance.
Enhanced SOA Platform Available
Oracle has released an enhanced service-oriented architecture (SOA) platform that includes new versions of Oracle BPEL Process Manager, Oracle Business Activity Monitoring, Oracle Web Services Manager, and Oracle Enterprise Server Bus, all components of Oracle SOA Suite. A new SOA platform component, Oracle Service Registry, is a secure registry for publishing, categorizing and discovering services, and it is now available in all editions of Oracle Application Server 10g.
New capabilities focus on three key areas: human workflow support for sophisticated task routing, notifications, and worklists; an enhanced, high-performance enterprise service bus for simplified data integration between IT systems; and greater ease-of-use for developers and system administrators with enhanced development and management tools. Other enhancements include hot-pluggable support for third-party rules engines and a new testing framework for easier management and automation of testing service-oriented processes.
|
Did You Know?
Service-Oriented Architecture Continues Growth
Worldwide spending on service-oriented architecture (SOA)-based external services is predicted to reach US$8.6 billion in 2006, a 138 percent increase from US$3.6 billion in 2005. By 2010, global SOA-based services spending should reach US$33.8 billion. The Americas will host the majority of external services spending on SOA, with the United States leading the market. Europe, the Middle East, and Africa represents the second largest region in terms of spending; however, the Asia Pacific region is expected to experience the most-rapid growth, mainly due to its current small base level.
Source: IDC Worldwide SOA-Based Services 2006-2010 Forecast
Execs Lament Poor Communication with Information Technology
In a March 2006 survey of U.S.-based business executives, 74 percent of respondents said a communication gap between business and IT cripples their ability to get mission-critical business systems to market on time. Eighty percent have experienced delays in getting to market, and 52 percent said that new systems get delivered with missing features. Sixty percent said that they budget for project delays, and 83 percent budget for cost overruns. Ninety percent say delivering projects faster to market would be an important factor in their competitive advantage and cost control.
Source: iRise
Nearly Half of Businesses Lack Continuity Plans
A survey of more than 5,000 IT professionals in the United States showed that nearly half of businesses lack a business continuity plan, even though more than 45 percent of companies experienced an IT failure last year. Hardware and network issues were the top two reasons cited for IT failures, and 58 percent of the time these failures resulted in downtime of one to eight hours for business-critical applications.
Source: Neverfail Group
|
|
Bookmark
