Lex... for you

Will you remember me, like the circled stones, On the ancient hills where you walk alone? Where the wind can speak my secret name, Like the air you breathe, will you remember me? Will you remember me, as your airplane flies? Over foreign seas an' breaking skies. Like a perfect child you can't bear to leave. In your last long days, will you remember me? Will you remember me, on the edge of life, Where time runs slow; where song can fly. In these shuttered rooms where we say goodbye. When the soul is free, will you remember? When there's no need to breathe, will you remember me? yes Lex, we will remember you.

old skills, old knowledge

i feel left behind... and wonder if my old knowledge and old sills wil be enough. with all the changes being done with new versions i wonder how long i willbe able to keep up. i still do: ps -aef | grep pmon | grep -v grep to see what databases are up on a box. how long will that be good? and now, stuck wit 8i and 9i and no prospects of going to 10g i keep feeling left further and further behind. and now i'mnot even doing DBA work, just loading data and promoting packages.

rman mumblings....

well working for a school district has some perks. i'm back from a 2 week break. and have a new boss. but he just doesn't have an idea of what a DBA is or does. we need to do several things, set up proper development, test nd production environments, move to rman backups, get rid of the web of database links we have, set up a proper datawhearhouse and data marts. so what am i doing? designing the DW? planning the move to rman? working on security? nope, i'm loading data and promting packages. not even grunt DBA work. *sigh* maybe it's tim to start looking again?

more secure thoughts...

well, things aren't as bad as they could be. all the default database accounts have the default passwords changed. you would be surprised at how many database I could get into with default passwords. but there is still no consesis of what the security should be. and the web of privs is just amazing. the number of accounts that have select any table system provs is just amazing. talk about the lazy way of granting things. i'd like to revoke them all, but it would just break so much stuff it's not worth the fight. well, at least not until I get an answer to just what kind of security they want... and then contrast that to what kind they actually need.

security audit...

so i've been asked to do a security audit on the databases at work. which leads to the question what do you mean by a security audit? and the even more basic question, what do you mean by security? simple question, right? so then why do i get so many different answers when i ask it? "i don't want anybody in my database." i don't really think you mean that. what good is a database if you can't put data into it and then get it back out? maybe you mean "i don't want any unauthorized people in my database"? but that is not just the providence of the oracle database security. much of that falls within the network security and application security. the database security is the last line of defense there. "i don't want anybody else to see my data." and i don't think that's what you mean either. perhaps "i don't want anybody who doesn't need it to see my data."? and then again that may not be right either, there may be many people who are useing your data and both they and you don't even know it. at work we have a web of public and private synonyms that mask where the data is and who is using it. clamp down on data access and watch all kinds of things break. so what is security? and how should it be applied? and those are the questions i need to answer before i can audit anything. by the gods, i just reread what i wrote... someone shoot me before i present again! and i wonder if this makes me an oracle blogger?;-)

and who says native americans are not as civilized as we are?

"A sundance woman is like the morning star, filled with spiritual beauty, wisdom and knowledge. Men and women are the most powerful of the polarities. We walk beside men as equal partners. It takes men and women who have respect and love for one another to live within the embrace of Father Sky and Mother Earth." --Dr. Henrietta Mann, SOUTHERN CHEYENNE

Standing Tall

Standing Tall bigger is better? WWBD.;-)