ODBC Connections

Sharing Your Love for Animals, One Bite at a Time

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Frost) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:50:00 +0000

If you are looking at the picture above and thinking to yourself, "what does a box of cereal have to do with software," then you might need to spend more time looking at life the way George Carlin did. Carlin, who passed away yesterday, built a career of pointing out the amusing side of stupidity and the ironies of life in our times. I imagine that the box of cereal pictured above would have made an all-too-easy target for his barbed wit. Wish you were still here to toss out one last rant, George.

While walking through the grocery store yesterday I came across a box of this product. Made by Kellogg's, and promoted by / cross-marketed with the cable TV station Animal Planet, "Wild Animal Crunch" comes with a variety of covers. I saw ones picturing sea lions (not seals because of the presence of external ear flaps) as well as polar bears but apparently there also ones featuring meerkats and panda bears.

What I found fascinating about this was the combination of both the name of the product as well as the picture shown. I'll allow that the sarcastic smart aleck demographic probably isn't one that Kellogg's was targeting for this product, but nevertheless, I can't be the first consumer to see this and think that this might be a subject of future marketing classes on how not to market your product, much some of the urban legends surrounding the sale of Gerber baby food in locations in Africa.

Keeping this in mind, I read the box and found it increasingly hilarious to read things such as, "Naturally and artificially flavored and vanilla-chocolate whole grain cereal" (what, wild animals need to be sweetened to be doused in milk and eaten with a spoon?), "A good source of fiber" (presumably because they didn't remove any cute, fuzzy hair prior to processing), and my personal favorite, "Share your love for animals" (by eating them, evidently). I have to think that somewhere the folks who came up with the "People Eating Tasty Animals" take on the acronym PETA are licking their chops at the prospect of following through on this last exhortation by passing the box around the breakfast table.

I'm also curious about how Kellogg's chose the 4 animals that grace the cover of its boxes - apparently they feel that their target market finds the idea of eating something with cute, fuzzy animals appealing. At first blush, it would seem that those who would be most likely to respond to this marketing would be:

Meerkats - Animal Planet show hosts and cameramen tired of just idly sitting back while "nature takes its course"
Panda bears - Vegetarians. Panda eat an exclusive diet of bamboo, after all.
Polar bears - Oil company executives.
Sea lions - Killer whales (bit of a niche market, but Kellogg's should have this one cornered with this master-stroke of product and positioning)

I gave it some thought and came up with some other wild animals that might help them expand their market segments a bit:

Bald eagles - Eat this cereal if you are patriotic. Don't and you're a terrorist.
Tapeworms - "The more you eat, the less you weigh." Offers the possibility of some cross-promotional opportunities with GNC and CBS's Survivor TV show.
Sea sponges - Yes, sponges are animals. The biologists out there will be all over this one for the geek quotient alone.
Dung beetles - Anyone willing to eat a cereal with one of these cuddly guys on the front would eat pencil shavings, which brings me to my final comment...

Regarding the taste of Wild Animal Crunch - Kellogg's should look into some better tasting animals. The sea lion variety was a bit like a bad cup of cafeteria coffee - not enough flavor as I ate it but plenty of sweetish residue left in my mouth that I kept tasting for the next half hour even after vigorous toothbrushing. The poor flavor yet distinctive texture conjured up all sort of unpleasant thoughts about what part of the sea lion lent itself to staying crunchy in soy milk. Perhaps the Panda bear will provide redemption for Kellogg's self-anointed role as wild animal breakfast gourmet. I'm practically vegetarian anyway.

SOA What I'm Saying Is, Data Access Matters

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Frost) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:23:00 +0000

You may be wondering what the picture at right has to do with the subject of this blog entry. The answer: nothing. It's just a humorous photo that made me smile this morning. I mean, how often do you see kids these days pantomiming Snidely Whiplash?

Anyway, on to the real reason for this entry: shameless self-promotion. My article, Solving Data Access Problems in SOA Environments, has been published by ITarchitect, a UK-based online publication. It has also been published in print in ITarchitect's, sister publication, VSJ. The article covers much of the same ground as the presentation that I gave at the MySQL 2008 Conference & Expo (the one that I blogged about last month). Basically, if you are looking for more explanation wrapped around the slides in my presentation, then this the article to read. I am also told that insomniacs can also find something of value from reading my article. Essentially, if you are software architect who can't sleep, my article should be considered required reading.

Perhaps an even better article on the same subject can be found at SOAWorld Magazine. Here we see a smart gentleman named John Goodson writing on the subject of Best Practices for SOA: Building a Data Services Layer. What makes him so smart you ask? Well, short of reading the article and figuring out why for yourself, you can always fall back on the fact that he has managed to keep me gainfully employed - in my world, that counts for something (even if it doesn't exactly make me an unbiased reviewer). ^_^

Technorati Tags | | data+access data+services data+services+layer SOA John+Goodson

Oyez, Oyez! New Entities Supported by DataDirect

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Frost) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:52:00 +0000

The image of the herald is one that pervades Western culture. The Biblical image of the archangel Gabriel announcing the forthcoming births of both John the Baptist and Jesus is one that Christians are very familiar with.

I'm not much of a herald. I'm hardly angelic, and I don't own a horn much less own one. I think I would have made a great town crier, though. I've been told that my voice carries - over cube walls, through doors, down hallways, across vast expanses, etc. I'm reasonably sure that being told that I have a voice with such a unique gift for being heard above the din of an office setting is a compliment. Isn't it?

All of this self-analysis brings me to the reason for my post today: my self-appointed role as town crier for news and announcements of interest to my loyal readers. To you, my faithful minions, I thrice toll my bell of harkening and lift my voice to loudly proclaim:

DataDirect to Support ADO.NET Entity Framework for Oracle Data Sources

Admittedly, this announcement is anti-climatic, for those of you who read this posting on the Microsoft blog last week, but it does bear repeating. There is a lot of interest right now among developers in the ease-of-use of LINQ and the productivity of the Entity Data Model. <marketing hat> Our announcement is meant to reaffirm that LINQ-based and Entity Data Model-based applications will experience the same unique benefits of using DataDirect's Connect for ADO.NET providers for relational database access as ones built to use current technologies such as DAAB. </marketing hat> (Sorry for that segueway, but you know I've got to give a shout out to now and again in order to pay the bills ^_^)

While this is hardly earth-shattering news or something with the weightiness of, say, a royal proclamation, it is one that we're proud to make because it's a signal of where our products are headed...sort of like a graduation announcement. It's enough to make a tough guy like me misty-eyed and emotional - it's like I'm witnessing a precocious little tyke growing up right before my eyes! *sniffle*

That's all for now. I'm off to hum a few bars to warm up for my daily auditory assault of my co-workers. Your comments and feedback are welcome so long as it doesn't compete with the "11" setting of volume knob of my strident self-important braying.

Technorati Tags | | ADO.NET DAAB Entities Entity+Framework LINQ Microsoft Oracle

Three Shouts: Virtualization, Data Services, and Beer

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Frost) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:35:00 +0000

With apologies to Tears for Fears, it's time for me to shout (not a RickRoll) about a few items that I think deserve some attention.

First and foremost, my esteemed colleague Mike Johnson has written an excellent article entitled The Importance of Data Connectivity to Virtualization. Rather than being a tribute to a cleverly written play by Oscar Wilde, Mike's article presents the case for choosing high quality data connectivity components in order to maximize an investment in virtualization.

Second, if you haven't yet signed up to attend Data Services World, I would recommend you get off of your duff and do so. The conference, scheduled for June 24, 3008 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, features a keynote delivered by John Goodson, an industry luminary in data connectivity and someone that I report up to. Anyone interested in learning more about data services should attend as John is as excellent a speaker as he is a generous boss. ^_^

Third, and finally, I'd like to call attention to beer that I had recently, a 2007 Abyss from Deschutes Brewery out of Bend Oregon. For any of you who like your beer strong, dark, and complex, I would strongly recommend you find a bottle of this delicious Imperial Stout to try. If you don't - feel free to ship me another bottle so I can enjoy this beer all over again. Slàinte!

Technorati Tags | | data+services John+Goodson Mike+Johnson virtualization

Will You Be Paying For That With Your Identity?

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Frost) — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:43:00 +0000

Today I am revisiting a subject that I've tackled previously - that of data security. Specifically, network encryption - the kind of data security that protects sensitive information as it traverses a network. The kind of data security that some organizations still have not figured out is key to the success of their IT security strategy.

First, there was the story of the data breach at Hannaford, an East Coast-based supermarket chain. Over 4 million credit card numbers were exposed as part of the data breach which resulted in 1,800 cases of fraud (was that all?). Last week we hear about a similar breach at the restaurant chain Dave & Busters, where hackers used a simple packet sniffer to capture patron credit and debit card payment information. In both cases, sensitive information was transmitted across a network in an unencrypted format.

Now, I don't want to come down too hard on the principals involved in these two incidents. I'm willing to bet that the lack of network encryption in both cases was due to a combination of possible factors:

A lack of network encryption support when the systems were initially brought online
Overconfidence in the data protection offered by use of an external firewall or other security measures
Simple oversight

There may be other factors that I am not listing here, but I believe that the reality of what gave rise to these two situations is covered by one or more of those items.

The question that I have is, how many of these news items like this will those who work for corporate IT organizations have to read about before they start to take network encryption seriously? The repercussions of data breaches are serious enough that I would think IT organizations of all shapes and sizes would implement a regular security audit process. Ideally it would encompass determining the sensitivity of data moving through or contained within the corporate network and review whether adequate end-to-end security measures are in place to protect the data. Perhaps it would include review of other factors and considerations as well. What I'm mentioning is really the minimum for what folks should be doing.

So the takeaway of all of this is (for those who still haven't gotten it), if the data is something you or your customers wouldn't want someone else seeing / accessing / using without your permission, for the sake of Pete - encrypt it before you send it across the network. If you don't, I will list you as an additional offending party here (and I can't promise I will be as charitable in my criticism the next time around).

I'd be interested in anyone's thoughts on what other steps organizations can take to avoid data breaches like that. Perhaps you have some feedback on other incidents as well. I welcome all comments on this subject.

Technorati Tags | | data+breach encryption data+encryption data+security network+encryption

MySQL, MyPresentation, MyThoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Frost) — Wed, 14 May 2008 19:00:00 +0000

Like the picture? It's not really relevant to anything contained in the following post except that it is an excellent visual aid for describing my professional life of late. "To leave whatever you're doing, you have to change your course." Yep, that about sums it up.

Let it never be said that I can't be motivated to do things. Roughly a month and a half has passed since my last post and at last the combination of guilt over my silence and my overwhelming need to be heard has driven me into action. I'm leaving out the indirect financial motivation (job-based compensation) for me to stay on top of this but it also comes into play as well. All of it adds up to me being prodded into action.

I did want to revisit my experience at the 2008 MySQL Conference & Expo. My attendance could be summarized this way: I attended, I spoke, I met, I listened, I left. Unfortunately taking this approach would leave out a lot of details that breathe a little more life into my retelling of the experience.

First off, let me just say that despite a technical hitch that delayed the start of my presentation by 10 minutes, I managed to keep an audience of around 20 people around long enough to sit through the entire session. This is a personal victory and a milestone. The last time I spoke at a conference, it was to a rapt audience of 3 people - 1 fast asleep, 1 who was sitting down to rest his weary legs (before he too, fell asleep, presumably) , and 1 person from my company who was essentially, paid to be there. Yes, I've come a long way, and while I was not offered any barleywine by any of the attendees (*tsk tsk*), I appreciated the attentiveness and polite questions afterward.

If you missed my presentation and for some crazy reason would like to see my slide deck, have at it, and don't forget to let me know what you think or share any comments or questions that you might have: MySQL%202008%20SOA%20Data%20Access%20Presentation.ppt

I was an attendee at a couple of sessions at the conference myself - the most interesting one for me was MySQL, LINQ and the ADO.NET Entity Framework, a presentation by Dave Sceppa, who is a Program Manager at Microsoft (I came late, so I just caught the tail end of Dave's intro where he explained that Reggie Burnett couldn't make it due to an injury he suffered during the trip? I'm not sure what happened). Dave had a lot of interesting things to present about ADO.NET and LINQ in particular. I had an opportunity to meet and introduce myself him after his presentation - very nice guy and one that I would recommend anyone who is interested in ADO.NET seek out at trade shows.

I was also at the MySQL Partners meeting where it was announced that MySQL was considering rolling out some new MySQL features (specifically ones related to backup and encryption) into MySQL Enterprise only. Jeremy Cole, whose blog more or less broke this news, was at the meeting and was pointed in his requests to the MySQL executive team for clarification and confirmation of the facts around this decision. Based on the rash of comments on his post and the prolific blogosphere hand-wringing over this announcement, it was clear that a lot of people in the MySQL community weren't happy about it. In fact, some claimed that Sun, who had just completed their acquisition of MySQL was now starting to close source it. In the software world, close sourcing an open source product is seen as the equivalent of Darth Vader freezing Han Solo in carbonite. While Han (MySQL) is technically still alive after his imprisonment, his state is considered unchangeable and subject to the whims of the Empire (Sun). It should be noted that after all of the fuss over this consideration, Sun seems to have backtracked on this a bit, but there's still debate over Sun's intentions with regards to making dividends on their billion-dollar investment in MySQL.

I was not as shocked and dismayed by this announcement / consideration as others apparently were. To me, it comes down to simple economics: why wouldn't Sun be looking for ways to add value to MySQL Enterprise and thus help justify why customers should pay for it versus simply downloading and using a free edition? Of course, some may argue that as an employee of a software company that makes money on closed source software, my perspective is easily dismissed. Without wanting to explain DataDirect's business model in great detail, I'll just say that if our products did not demonstrate value over our competition (which is almost always free or ridiculously cheap), we would have gone out of business a long time ago. So yeah, I guess I'm not afraid to say that because value is what differentiates software companies that make money on their products and services (and stay in business for over 20 years) and the ones that don't make money (and consequently, fail to stay in business). ;)

My final thought on my trip is a bit lighthearted - any of you who consider yourselves beer snobs (a la, yours truly) and find yourself hunting for a place to buy and sip great beer in Bay Area would do well to consider showing up at the City Beer Store in San Francisco. The owners were terrific - extremely friendly and helpful, and the selection was terrific (I scored 2 bottles each of Russian River Beatification (Batch 002) and Supplication!). I managed to stuff my suitcases full of enough bottles of deliciousness that the TSA saw fit to inspect my bags, though I am happy to report that they did so professionally and did not "borrow" any of my precious goodies for themselves. (THANK YOU!!)

I'm planning to move up to a more regular update schedule, so look for a new entry well within the month and a half long interval that I established previously. Oh, and look for things to get alternately more business-focused AND more whimsical. You were warned. ^_^

craft+beer barleywine MySQL SOA Data+Access ADO.NET speaking+opportunity

Another Shameless Plug: Listen To Me at the 2008 MySQL Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Frost) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:09:00 +0000

Those familiar with my personality (the real-life, much more interesting one) know that I am given to spontaneous speechifying on frequent, mostly inappropriate occasions. As a result, they rarely encourage me to share one of my not-so-humble opinions or to grace them with my pithy, Gibran-esque observations on the nature of the human condition, et al. (For those of you who deign to counter this self-assessment of my wisdom, consider the date of this posting before commenting... ^_^)

Every so often, however, I manage to fool someone into thinking that my pedagogical pontifications are worth listening to and I am thus granted a podium on which to speak and share my wisdom (such as it is). Such an occasion is nigh and I encourage you to come out and support my heretofore unfulfilled dream of having a full room with a rapt audience spellbound by my oratory.

Event: The 2008 MySQL Conference & Expo

Location: Santa Clara, CA

Time: 11:55am through 12:40pm on Tuesday, April 15th

Title (sure to whet any appetite): Increase the Flexibility of MySQL-based SOA Frameworks with a Data Access Layer

The Goods:
While many organizations implementing Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) are adopting a standards-based approach for development of new application services, few are applying the same methodology to their MySQL database access logic. A tightly coupled, MySQL-specific approach to application service design eliminates the benefits of an SOA strategy and results in an infrastructure that slows application deployment and reduces business logic reuse and flexibility.

In this presentation, Mike Frost, product manager for DataDirect Technologies, will introduce a strategy for separating application logic from MySQL database access logic. The presentation will describe the benefits of a loosely coupled approach for all application and data access logic such as reduced development time, simplified deployment, and increased overall flexibility all within an SOA framework. Frost will introduce and describe the concept of a data access layer based on the emerging Service Data Objects (SDO) specification and Data Access Service (DAS) standard and describe what the future of data access logic will look like for MySQL users within an SOA framework.

Additional Details: See http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008/public/schedule/detail/2578

If you come, you should know that I accept heckling so long as it is followed with an offer of a craft beer not sold within the state of North Carolina - barleywines are my favorite though anything strong that I can fit into my suitcase for the flight back will be graciously accepted. Oh, and don't forget to leave me your business card so that I know who to credit for the soothing of my bruised ego.

craft+beer barleywine MySQL DAS Data+Access shameless+plug Data+Access+Layer SDO SOA speaking+opportunity

Shameless Plug: Vote for (and attend) our TechEd Developer Bof Session

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Frost) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:46:00 +0000

I'm a propeller head - or at least, I used to be one until I traded in my cap for a marketeer's (sic) fez. My techie colleagues have been mostly forgiving of my decision to "sell out" on my former role as a technical support engineer. They have mercifully opted to forgo making references to cliches such as, "I'm not in marketing, I work for a living!" when I ask them how their jobs are going. Still, I know that with my new title, I am less likely to be engaged in the kind of cool water-cooler-type conversations that take place when smart people are taking a break. This unintended consequence of my professional transition from technical geek to technically meek is the reason why I think my presence generates a Seinfeldian "Hello Frosty" reaction whenever I insert myself unceremoniously into such a conversation. I understand where you're coming from: "It's not personal, it's just technical stuff." Just like teens who want nothing to do with their parents, techies want to talk tech with other techies - not with marketing techie wannabes. Inside, however, my inner geek is crying out for respect: "Wait, I was just about to crack a joke that involves a C-shell command on AIX..."

This segueway brings me (somewhat awkwardly, I'll admit) to my role as Shameless Promoter Of Things That Benefit My Employer (a role that comes with the fez rental). Microsoft is allowing people to vote on the topics that will be used for several BoFs (Birds-of-a-Feather sessions, if you're still working on that propeller hat) that will be held at the Microsoft TechEd North America 2008 Developers conference and frankly, we'd like for you to vote for ours.

To vote, go to https://www.msteched.com/dev/voting.aspx. Be sure to scroll about halfway down the list until you will see our entry, Making Sense of All: Heterogeneous Data Access on the .NET Framework 3.5 with an appropriate checkbox, which we'd like for you to check before you submit your selections (I can't assume everyone knows how to vote since the Florida Election Debacle of 2000). More information on the topic, if you're really not going to click above and vote:

In this BoF, we’ll peel back the layers on data access from the .NET platform. We’ll look at the common problems facing today’s applications with a particular emphasis on applications in a multi-faceted, heterogeneous application environment. With all the options now available, including the Data Access Application Blocks, LINQ, Entity Framework and vanilla ADO.NET which is the one for you? Come armed with your questions, ideas and burning issues and we can promise a lively discussion!

If our topic is among the most popular topics voted on, then my esteemed, suitably credentialed, and technically astute colleague Jonathan Bruce will be there to run the show and keep things technically interesting for the smart folks. And if that isn't incentive enough to vote for this and attend, then consider that I might even make it which means that should you show up, you will have a chance to crack an inside joke that relies on geek humor and watch me struggle to get it and try to fit in.

I can guarantee that feeling smug about your tech cred will never feel so good. :)

ADO.NET Jonathan+Bruce Microsofte shameless+plug TechEd

The Server Consolidation Bottleneck

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Frost) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 01:08:00 +0000

It would be unoriginal for me to submit some sort of apology for the delay between my posts, so I won't offer one. I'm unsure who would care if I neglected to include one anyhow. ^_^

One of the subjects that I have been doing a lot of business research into of late is one of the current IT industry darlings, virtualization. I have a lot of personal and professional interest in learning more on this topic because its impact on how traditional proprietary software companies license their software and because the flexibility and efficiency opportunities that it presents businesses with a significant IT infrastructure.

Like a lot of new technologies, I think there is a gap between the promise of virtualization and the reality of what can be delivered with the current state of the technology. One key example of this gap is the best-articulated business value of virtualization, server consolidation. I recently attended a seminar held locally by VMware where the typical server consolidation ratio for VMware customers was cited as being between 8 and 12 to 1 with some customers achieving a 30 to 1 server consolidation ratio. A 30 to 1, 12 to 1, or even 8 to 1 consolidation in server hardware is remarkable to consider in any case, and would likely get the attention of anyone seeking to reduce the acquisition, deployment, support, power, cooling, and maintenance costs of servers within an IT organization.

So what's the gap here? Basically, that degree of server consolidation assumes that the applications running on the guest machines at most, use the network infrequently or not at all. A recent Wall Street Journal article (Real Virtualization Battle Looms, 2/26/2008) highlighted the "communications bottleneck between server systems that has made it impractical to use virtualization for some of the most demanding applications, such as large databases". In essence, this says that forcing applications requiring significant use of the network to share the network I/O resources of a single server with other operating systems and applications isn't practical. The WSJ article does note that there are some organizations looking at solving the problem of managing network I/O for virtualized environments, but at the same time, if an organization has many applications already running near capacity on a robust hardware configurations, it seems unlikely that virtualization alone will offer them much in the way of a consolidation benefit since increasing network bandwidth isn't easy or cheap.

I do think that the future of virtualization is bright and offers a great deal of promise for the future of IT organizations of all shapes and sizes. Until the practical challenges of consolidating network I/O-heavy applications to a significant enough degree to experience real cost savings is solved, however, the full scope of virtualization's server consolidation benefits will remain untapped.

virtualization server+consolidation VMware application+performance network+efficiency

Becoming a Data Connectivity Geek: Step 1 of 12

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Frost) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 13:24:00 +0000

"Gee Mike, how can I become as wise about data connectivity as you?"

The above question is proof that although a question may be easy to ask, the answer may not be simple (nor the questioner sane in this case). My professional career started without even cursory knowledge of what a driver was, how relational databases worked, or even how to program in something more modern than FORTRAN (not dating myself as much as hinting that my college career was somewhat atypical for someone in my position). Since that time I have become "sufficiently proficient" in the subject of data connectivity to get myself into trouble, but not quite good enough to get myself out - sort of an anti-Macgyver in that regard.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to share with you the secret of how I managed to acquire the thimbleful of lore that I have to date: listening to people smarter than myself. Thankfully for me, I haven't had to look far for overqualified individuals at my place of employment - it's like looking for a tall tree in a forest of redwoods. The great news is that these resident geniuses are actually more interested in going forth and helping others who grapple with the weighty questions involving data connectivity than they are in trying to give me the "Dick and Jane" version of every new concept that comes along.

You can meet these Superstars of Standards-Based Database Access APIs at DataDirect's Architect Tutorials at one of the following dates and locations:

Thursday, October 4th | St. Louis, MO - Hilton Frontenac
Thursday, October 11th | Toronto, ON - Westin Harbour Castle
Tuesday, October 16th | Irvine, CA - Hyatt Regency

This year's theme is, "Successful Strategies for SOA Enablement & Data Connectivity," which sounds much more useful and technical than "See Spot Program 'Hello World' In FORTRAN". If my personal recommendation amounts to anything - attend and don't forget to bring a warm thinking cap.

SOA software+architect data+access database data+connectivity geek+tutorials Macgyver

SSIS + data connectivity = read my article

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Frost) — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 14:22:00 +0000

Consider this the first of what I hope will be many shameless plugs of my more "formal" writing. Admittedly the subject isn't as ODBC-related as this blog subject suggests that it should be, but it does touch on an application that a lot of organizations are using - Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services. If you or a colleague are using or are planning to use SSIS to connect with non-SQL Server data sources, let me modestly recommend that you peruse my article as a valuable source of wisdom on the subject. :)

Now that I have reached my limit of reflexive back-patting for the week, I will cease further attempts to cajole you into reading my article but do drop in a comment tell me what you think about the article if you do read it.

SSIS Microsoft data+access sql+server

Assimilated: All Your Mac Are Belong To Us

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Frost) — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:16:00 +0000

The picture to the right is what I anticipate I will look like in a couple of weeks (minus the hair, the braces, and the youth). I'm pretty sure I will shed similar tears of joy once a box like that arrives after 6 years of hemming and hawing. That's right, the Mac that I have talked about buying for years (but never quite got up the guts to pull the trigger on) is finally on order.

I will admit to being seduced by the siren call of my Macphile friends to join the ranks of people who love their computers rather than eternally battle them. Furthermore, I freely acknowledge the power that the Apple marketing machine has had at convincing me that I will be cooler, more hip, etc. etc. if I can smugly tell people, "My other computer is a Mac." Still, it took time, the right set of circumstances, and an acknowledgment that I no longer play video games quite as earnestly as I once did for me to come around to the idea that it was nigh time for me to act, rather than to continue simply uttering comments that began with, "One of these days..." To the credit of Apple's marketing, though, I think watching the umpteenth edition of "Mac vs. PC" ads and realizing that rather than wanting to be the nerdy PC guy (even if he is a resident expert at everything), I wanted to be the "stars in a movie with Bruce Willis" guy. :)

When I was young, Macs were seen as primarily the domain of educators, illustrators, and whimsical dreamers who liked to play with "toy" computers. Macs didn't seem as "real" or as macho as the ubiquitous 386, 486, and Pentium monstrosities that pervaded college dorm rooms, sprouted innumerable plugs to multiple peripherals, required disks and disks of software and hardware drivers, and demanded a fair bit of technical savvy to use well. Slowly, over time, Macs went from seeming uncool and way too niche to be respectable to now bestowing upon the purchaser a measure of chic due to the physical design and coolness owning to the "Arty the Smarty" self-confidence that it takes to buy one when most people don't.

So what changed? For one, I don't think that Mac suffered from the surging popularity and image of one of its much younger siblings, the iPod. I also think that as the value of a personal computer transitioned from "tool for playing games" to "tool used to write documents and balance checkbooks" to "tool used to browse the Internet" the distinctions and barriers to Mac ownership by the less-fanatic masses (like me), became fuzzier and disappeared. Of course, when OS X came out, the biggest barrier for me melted away - The Geek Factor. No more can a Mac be called a toy - not when it runs on a Unix operating system. My desire for something new to tinker around with and explore will be redirected from finding ways around the headaches of why my browser keeps crashing (and then asking me if I want to report the issue - as though it hadn't already happened 20 times) to learning all of the neat touches of using the Mac OS.

My MacBook Pro is still on order and it will likely arrive just in time for my vacation. A perfect opportunity, really, because I will have all sorts of time to poke around with it while I relax on the Outer Banks and revel in just doing nothing. Until then, I will have to be content with posting commentary on this exciting development and hoping that something more lively to discuss on this blog comes along in the meantime.
macintosh mac macbook

Data security: don't be blind to the big picture

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Frost) — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 13:42:00 +0000

I've been told that I should start this first post with a comment indicating that this is my first post. OK, that was fun - I'm glad that is over with.

I read an interesting editorial this morning on the issue of database encryption that got me thinking about the parable of the 6 Blind Men and the Elephant. In the editorial, the author discusses the possibility of using database-level encryption as a means of protecting sensitive data from a user who was not allowed to see it.

What got me thinking was the fact that the author, who has worked or is currently working as a DBA, takes an approach that I think overemphasizes the importance of database security features in addressing data security while not addressing other areas of greater risk. He can be forgiven for this view - from my experience, DBAs tend to be very smart but very narrow in focus. Of course a DBA would attempt to address problems from the perspective of the database - it's what DBAs know and work with every day and it's what they are most comfortable with. So in that way, DBAs are describing the "elephant" of data security using the knowledge that they have "in hand".

While I won't claim to be able to see the entire elephant, I do believe that there is much more to data security than simply configuring database security settings. Most people would agree that when managed well, relational database management systems offer an extremely secure environment for sensitive data. Through the use of features such as authentication, authorization, permissions (user-level and group-level) auditing, and more, it is very, very difficult to accomplish unauthorized access to database information. Unfortunately, there always comes as time when the information stored in the database must be processed or consumed by an application and that is when the risk to the data becomes greater.

In a typical configuration, a production database is running on its own server while the application accessing it is located across a network on a separate client or server platform. If database encryption is employed, the data that is sent to the application must first be decrypted before being sent to the application over the network. In an era where quality network packet sniffing tools are available to anyone with a a little know-how and an internet connection, there is always a possibility of someone capturing and logging the packet information. Despite this possibility, articles like the editorial mentioned above fail to emphasize the importance of securing critical data once it leaves the security of the database and passes over the network.

Most commercial database vendors now support some form of encryption of data over the network, typically through the use of SSL or some related data encryption protocol. In this scenario, before data is transmitted over the network via TCP/IP, it is encrypted. Once across the network and received, the packets are then decrypted and processed appropriately. If intercepted in transit by a packet sniffer, the data is gibberish and useless. When used in conjunction with database encryption, such network encryption makes the overall data environment much more secure and much less vulnerable to viewing by inappropriate audiences.

To be clear - there is more to data security than database encryption and network encryption. All of the security features employed within a production environment must work together and compliment each other - in contrast to the blind men in the parable who each believe his own narrow view of the elephant is correct. If you don't consider all of the pieces of the application stack that handle your sensitive data - application, data connectivity, database, network, servers, etc. you could end up with a security infrastructure that protects your elephant's tusks, but not it's tail.

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