SANS Institute: Making Database Security an IT Security Priority

The most important company information resides in databases and organizations are not doing enough to secure this critical data. Although it can be difficult to put a price tag on stored data, the compromise of such information can cause significant damage to an organizations operations, reputation and bottom line. Tanya Baccum, SANS Institute analyst, discusses the importance of having an appropriate IT security strategy that mitigates risk to databases by introducing key steps and controls to effective database security. more

SANS Institute: Transparent Data Encryption, New Technologies and Best Practices for Database Encryption

Data encryption can help prevent data loss, theft, and fraud and even assist in meeting regulatory requirements. Its no wonder organizations know they need to encrypt sensitive and regulated data. However, many have felt the pain when encryption controls have not been implemented the way they should and data has been lost. When it comes to encrypting data at the database level, there are many areas in which encryption is applied and managed. Here, the SANS Institute takes a look at the essentials of encryption and discusses the pros and cons of leading solutions available today. more

Database Consolidation onto Private Clouds

Consolidating databases onto a private cloud is a new model for the delivery of database services. Private clouds consolidate servers, storage, operating systems, databases, and mixed workloads onto a shared hardware and software infrastructure. Deploying databases on a consolidated private cloud enables IT departments to improve quality of service levels and reduce capital and operating costs. Consolidation can be achieved through server, operating system, and database consolidation, and the higher the consolidation density achieved, the greater the return on investment (ROI). This white paper describes how to successfully consolidate your database onto a private cloud through several deployment models. more

Justifying Investments in Database Security

Solutions for safeguarding sensitive data housed in database management systems vary from encrypting data at the application level to defense-in-depth protection of the database itself. Aberdeens analysis shows clear-cut advantages for database security rather than application-level security requiring encryption of data: based on the same number of applications, 30% fewer incidents of data loss or data exposure, 15% greater efficiency at addressing common audit requirements, and 34% lower annual cost of security-related management. more

Get Serious About SOA Governance: A Five-Step Action Plan for Executives

Whether your organization's service-oriented architecture (SOA) has 50 services being used by one customer, or 50 customers using one service, you need SOA governance; increased business agility depends on it. SOA governance provides the ability to quickly and continuously translate and transmit business strategy and requirements into the processes, policies, and controls that will guide the evolution of your infrastructure and your enterprise. Download this whitepaper, Get Serious About SOA Governance: A Five-Step Action Plan for Executives to see why many organizations are reaping the rewards of successful SOA transformations and what you need to do to make yours one of them.

• Learn why failure to provide effective SOA exposes your organization to serious risk
• Discover the 5 steps to successful SOA Governance
• Understand the challenges of service-oriented architecture from both outside and inside your organization

Don't miss Get Serious About SOA Governance: A Five-Step Action Plan for Executives, a whitepaper that clearly defines the steps necessary to a successful SOA governance program for your organization. more

SOA Governance - Framework and Best Practices

Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs) will make things possible for your business. Things like improved performance, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. Important things. Game changing things. Unfortunately, technology this advanced can come with some implementation challenges. A failure in governance is often to blame for a derailed SOA project. Governance had different meanings depending on who you talk to, but its importance doesn't change.
Download this white paper, SOA Governance: Framework and Best Practices, to learn how establishing a proper system of governance can make a difference during implementation.

• Understand the benefits of a Service-Oriented Architectures
• Learn how a failure in governance can derail your SOA objectives
• Hear an approach to SOA governance that can help keep your SOA projects on track

Download SOA Governance: Framework and Best Practices for a better understanding of the role that governance can play when implementing an SOA. more

Ready or Not, Here Comes the Cloud

Clouds do many things well, but fixing performance problems isn't one of them. For that you need a world-class application server. Learn how application delivery problems continue to frustrate IT managers and how to move to the cloud without losing your sanity. more

High Avail and Disaster Recovery Using Application Grid Technology

Many businesses are totally dependent on critical computer-based services for their operations. Yet only 50 percent of businesses have a plan for maintaining the availability of these computing services in the face of unplanned computer downtime. This article shows how an application grid built on Oracle Fusion Middleware can not only prevent unplanned outages, but it can improve the overall performance of mission critical business applications. more

Lower Total Cost of Ownership for Mission Critical Applications

Oracle Tuxedo is the industrys #1 distributed transaction processing platform. It provides mainframe-class reliability, performance, and scalability, all on open, distributed systems for applications written in C, C++, and COBOL. Tuxedo is the premier platform for building mission-critical applications and re-hosting mainframe applications on open systems and commodity-based grid infrastructure. Oracle Tuxedo is cost-effective, reliable, and extremely scalable (up to hundreds of thousands of transactions per second). Finally, Tuxedo protects mainframe investments through reuse of existing IT assets in modern service-oriented architecture while significantly reducing operational costs. As a member of the hot-pluggable Oracle Middleware family, Tuxedo embraces open standards for maximum flexibility and interoperability while delivering unmatched performance and scalability. As companies seek to lower their total cost of ownership, adopt more standards oriented platforms, and leverage existing IT assets while not compromising on the mission critical nature of their business applications, Oracle Tuxedo emerges as the platform of choice. more

The Next Step in Engineered Systems

Engineered systems are pre-integrated hardware and software solutions that provide extreme levels of performance and cost savings. Now for the first time, IT departments can gain the performance and cost savings benefits of an engineered system on a flexible, general purpose platform that supports a diverse set of legacy, new and custom applications. Download this Executive Brief to learn more. more

The Information Technology Modernization Challenge - Maintain or Innovate

Limited budgets and resources make it difficult to stay strategic. But to stay competitive, you need to address today's datacenter challenges while also looking ahead at how IT can better align and support the business. Download the new Oracle Whitepaper, The Information Technology Modernization Challenge: Maintain or Innovate and learn how Oracle Advanced Customer Services experts can help your organization drive massive efficiencies and near-term cost savings into your existing infrastructure. more

Reconciling Datacenter Consolidation and Security

Security concerns continue to hobble consolidation efforts in the data center. The concerns are real, and most often stem from a scattershot, non-integrated approach to consolidation. There is a better, more secure way, grounded in servers and software platforms built from the ground up to work optimally with one another. more

Reducing Costs Through Better Server Utilization

As IT organizations support dynamically changing business priorities and cope with economic pressures, maintaining datacenter agility is critical By consolidating systems onto the latest server technology and taking advantage of virtualization techniques, enterprises can optimize datacenter efficiency, gain flexibility, and reduce operating costs-without sacrificing performance or impacting service levels. more

Optimizing Storage for Better TCO in Oracle Environments: Management

The Oracle storage portfolio is full of features that make it easier for IT professionals to manage their storage infrastructure, especially when they're using Oracle storage with Oracle applications. Easier management means the IT staff can devote more of its time to the products and services that directly benefit the organization's bottom line. Download this Executive Brief to learn more. more

Optimizing Storage for Better TCO in Oracle Environments: Performance and Scalability

Oracle storage products offer unrivaled performance and scalability, especially when they work together with Oracle software. Download this Executive Brief to learn how Oracle storage products help organizations with heavy transaction workloads and protect the investment in storage infrastructure. more

Optimizing Storage for Better TCO in Oracle Environments: Efficiency

Oracle engineers its storage products to tightly integrate with Oracle applications and databases, allowing Oracle applications to tap into the features of the storage products and deploy solutions that increase productivity and increase efficiency. Download this Executive Brief to discover the efficiency features built into Oracle's storage portfolio. more