Oracle 11g security & auditing new features

Enhanced Password - Pete Finnigan notes some new Oracle 11g security features "[Oracle 11g] will have case sensitive passwords and also the password algorithm has changed to SHA-1 instead of the old DES based hashing used."

Oracle SecureFiles - replacement for LOBs that are faster than Unix files to read/write. Lots of potential benefit for OLAP analytic workspaces, as the LOBs used to hold AWs have historically been slower to write to than the old Express .db files. Mark Rittman Securefiles are a huge improvement to BLOB data types. Faster, with compression, encryption. Source: Laurent Schneider

Oracle 11g audit vault - Oracle Audit Vault is a new feature that will provide a solution to help customers address the most difficult security problems remaining today, protecting against insider threat and meeting regulatory compliance requirements.

Proxy connect for SQL*Plus - New with 10r2 proxy identification in SQL*Plus, the "connect" command has been enhanced to allow for a "proxy", to aid applications that always connect with the same user ID:

connect sapr3[scott]/tiger

FGAC for UTL_SMTP, UTL_TCP and UTL_HTTP. You can define security on ports and URLs. Source: Lewis Cunningham

Fine Grained Dependency Tracking (FGDT). This means that when you add a column to a table, or a cursor to a package spec, you don't invalidate objects that are dependant on them. Sweet! Source: Lewis Cunningham

Database Workload Replay - Oracle "Replay" allows the total database workload to be captured, transferred to a test database created from a backup or standby database, then replayed to test the affects of an upgrade or system change. Currently, they are working to a capture performance overhead of 5%, so you could conceivably capture real production workloads. Source: Dr. Tim Hall

Source: http://www.dba-oracle.com/oracle11g/oracle_11g_new_features.htm#security

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Database Administrator Jobs

Database Administrator Jobs

As the new database dependent systems have been increasing in the recent years, the necessity of appointing a Database Administrator has become evident in the corporate field. The database administrator is the one who is responsible for the integrity and security of the database systems that are used in the corporate offices.

The major responsibilities if a database administrator are Recoverability, Integrity, Security, Availability, Performance, Development and Testing Support of the database system.

A database administrator is responsible for the following aspects of Data base: He will be responsible for creating and testing backups and verifying the integrity of the data. A database administrator needs to provide maximum performance with the available budget. He should know to use the budget in an economic way and at the same time he should also extract maximum benefits from it.

The administrator needs to help the program engineers in utilizing the database fully. Administrator needs to ensure the security of the system with the implementation of access control to the data.

Database administrator will be involved in the works of database designing, implementation and monitoring, tuning and troubleshooting assignments. Different types of companies will hire or appoint the candidates according to their knowledge on different databases which the company is working with.

The companies which appoint the database administrator need him to work for the development of new database systems, along with providing security for the existing database systems. The new database he develops should meet the quality standards of the company. Organizations seek the applicant who applies for the post of database administrator to have an experience of 3 to 5 years in the field in a corporate environment.

The candidate should know to work with the technologies like: Oracle (8i to 9i release 2) Oracle Forms (4.5) Oracle Reports (2.5) SQL Server (7, 2000).

Though development and testing support are commonly done works by a database administrator, he should not think it as his or her least important duty. Because, managers, with a result-oriented mindset, consider the development and testing support, that includes the collection of sample production data to test the changed and new program, as the most important duty to be performed by the database administrators.

This job is very challenging as there are opportunities like working in different systems like corporate business, geographic information systems, internet and intranet. The corporate business includes human resource, finance and others. KoreOne is taking part of recruitment of database administrative positions for reputed IT firms.
By: Shakir A
Source: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=442886

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Oracle Database Administration

Oracle Database Administration

Oracle Database Administrators are responsible for administering Oracle Database servers and the phenomenon is called Oracle Database Administration. Each oracle database requires at least one Database Administrator (DBA) to administer it as an Oracle database can be large and can have many users. The types of Oracle users and their roles and responsibilities vary from site to site. A small site can have one database administrator who administers the database for application developers and users. A very large site can find it necessary to divide the duties of a database administrator among several people, and among several areas of specialization.

A database administrator is held responsible for installing and upgrading the Oracle server and application tools. The DBA allocates the system storage and plans the future storage requirements for the database system. The responsibility of a DBA is to create primary database storage structure after designing an application and create primary objects once the application is designed. The DBA modifies the database structure according to the information given by the developers and enrolls users and maintain system security. The administrator ensures the compliance with the Oracle License Agreement and control and maintains user access to the database. The performance of the database is then monitored and optimized. The DBA plans for backup and recovery of database information, maintain archive data on tape, and take regular backups and restore the database. For troubleshooting, the DBA should contact the Oracle Corporation.

The fundamental task of Oracle Database Administrator is to evaluate the database server hardware. The evaluation should reveal the information about the number of disk drives available to Oracle and its databases, to ensure if any dedicated tape drives are available to Oracle and its databases, and inspect the memory available for running Oracle. The database administrator should install the Oracle database server software and other front-end tools and database applications that access the database. The database administrator plans the database for logical storage structure of the database, overall database design, and a backup strategy for the database. After the designing the database, the administrator should open and create the database for normal use. The database can be created at the installation time, using the Database Configuration Assistant. The DBA should take a backup of the database structure and carry out the backup strategy planned for the database. After the backup of the database structure, the administrator should enroll the system users of the database according to the Oracle license agreement. The other tasks of a DBA are to implement the database design, backup the fully functional database and tune database performance.

KoreOne is a leading job provider for skilled Oracle Database Administrators capable enough to handle large databases of various companies.
Written By: Shakir A
Ref: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=445132

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Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80004005' Specified driver could not be loaded due to system error 5 (Oracle in OraHome92).

Solution Description
--------------------

Oracle 9.2 Client software requires that you give the Authenticated User
privilege to the Oracle Home by following these steps:

1.  Log on to Windows as a user with Administrator privileges.

2.  Launch Windows Explorer from the Start Menu and and navigate to the
    ORACLE_HOME folder.  This is typically the "Ora92" folder under the
    "Oracle" folder (i.e. D:\Oracle\Ora92).

3.  Right-click on the ORACLE_HOME folder and choose the "Properties" option
    from the drop down list.  A "Properties" window should appear.

4.  Click on the "Security" tab of the "Properties" window.

5.  Click on "Authenticated Users" item in the "Name" list (on Windows XP
    the "Name" list is called "Group or user names").

6.  Uncheck the "Read and Execute" box in the "Permissions" list under the
    "Allow" column (on Windows XP the "Permissions" list is called
    "Permissions for Authenticated Users").

7.  Re-check the "Read and Execute" box under the "Allow" column (this is
    the box you just unchecked).

8.  Click the "Advanced" button and in the "Permission Entries" list make
    sure you see the "Authenticated Users" listed there with:

        Permission = Read & Execute
          Apply To = This folder, subfolders and files

    If this is NOT the case, edit that line and make sure the "Apply onto"
    drop-down box is set to "This folder, subfolders and files".  This
    should already be set properly but it is important that you verify this.

9.  Click the "Ok" button until you close out all of the security properties
    windows.  The cursor may present the hour glass for a few seconds as it
    applies the permissions you just changed to all subfolders and files.

10.  Reboot your computer to assure that these changes have taken effect.


Re-execute the application and it should now work.

ref: http://www.ureader.com/message/451160.aspx

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