Solaris 10: Using Postgres (Part 2)

(Postgres Logo)

Abstract:
Solaris had long been the operating system for performing managed services in the telecommunication arena. During a time when Oracle priced Solaris out of the market by charging a higher fee for similarly performing hardware than other competitors, Sun Microsystems started bundling Postgres and later purchased MySQL for bundling. Postgres is a simple, easy to enable, royalty free database available for Solaris. This article will discuss using the Solaris 10 bundled Postgres database.

Setting Up Postgres
The first article in this series, Solaris 10: Using Postgres (Part 1), discusses how to enable a reasonable 64 bit Posrgres database bundled with Solaris 10, preparing the first user, as well as running the first command line access.

Creating a Table



References
[html] Creating a Table
[html] Populating a Database Notes
[html] SQL Copy Data Into or From Table
[html] SQL Insert Into Table Command
[html] DML Inserting Data Into a Table
[html] SQL Update Data in Table
[html] SQL Delete From Table Command
[html] SQL Truncate Data in Table
[html] Insert or Update PG-SQL Expand 38-1
[html] Database Maintenance Through Vacuum

Citrix: XenApp and MS SQL Express

Citrix: XenApp and MS SQL Express

Abstract:

Citrix XenApp Platinum with SmartAuditor comes shipped with an embedded Microsoft SQL Database. Microsoft removed the backup agent from the MS SQL Express 2005, even though it was bundled in former Express releases. There are alternatives to the stock backup capability that Microsoft stripped from their MS SQL Express.

Documentation:

Microsoft provides some best practies backup and restoral of their database. Microsoft published such notes on the Microsoft Deveoper Network, or MSDN for short.

[MSDN Managing Database Files (SQL Server Express)] - Microsoft published a note about managing database files under Microsoft SQL Server Express 2008R2 release. Similar notes for 2005 and 2008 editions were also included.

[MSDN Deploying SQL Server Express] - This technican note deployment of MS SQL Server Express from 2008 and on, including a tool called "xcopy". Versions 2008, 2008R2, and the next release (i.e. Denali) are all noted.

[MSDN How To: Attach a Database File to SQL Server Express ] - This note discusses attaching a database file, from a backup, to a Microsoft SQL Server Express installation. Versions include: 2005, 2008, 2008R2. and Denali.

[MSDN SQL Server 2008R2 Backup Overview] - This note includes a link to Recovery Model Overview. An additional note points to Creating Full and Differential Backups of an SQL Database. An additional note on Working with Transaction Logs is also referenced.

[MS Developer Network Backups] - In May of 2008, Jonathan Kehayias posted an article on Microsoft Developers Network with a stored procedure and basic usage of the procedure in order to perform backups and restorals. The article is not clear on performing restorals.

[MSDN Backup Transact-SQL] - Microsoft published a technical note on how to conduct various backups of Microsoft SQL Server. The article is not clear on performing restorals. After doing some searches, there was a similar Restore Transact-SQL note.

[MSDN How To Restore a Database Backup] - This note discussed how to conduct a restore using Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.

[MSDN Backing Up and Restoring Databases] - This note is explicitly for SQL Server.

[MSDN Copying Databases to Other Servers] - This note is explictly for SQL Server.

Alternatives:

Over the internet, many common people lamented the problem with Microsoft yanking the agent involved in scheduling database backups from SQL Server Express starting from 2005 version. Various people took different approaches.

[DB-Save SQL Server Backup] - A robust German solution which will not only backup and restore, but allow for restoral onto other systems. DBSave says it is optimised for "SQL Server newbies". It is available in freeware and commercial editions. Encryption and compression are both available. One databases supported via freeware. Backup to FTP Server supported. Scheduled jobs are not available in freeware edition. See Feature Matrix.

[SQL Backup and FTP] - A simple solution which will backup and restore up SQL databases. It is available in freeware and commercal editions. Compression is available. Two databases are supported via freeware. Backup to FTP Server is supported in freeware edition. See Features Matrix.

[SQL Agent: A .NET Framework] - Danilo Corallo published a piece of code on May 2008 that provide the yanked Job Scheduling feature and runs as a Microsoft Service.

[SQL Server Nation SQL Server Express Automation ] - Tim Chapman published a suggestion on how to backup SQL Server Express databases using a script and the Microsoft Windows 2008R2 Scheduler.

[BrianMadden Automate Backup of SQL Server 2005 Express] - Katie Koepke in May 2007 published an article on backing up the embedded database in Citrix.

Conclusion:

Microsoft has really put the screws to new users of their embedded database technology by removing the most basic of features and not clearly documenting a simple path for backup and restore.

Microsoft rejects call to fix SQL password-exposure risk

Microsoft rejects call to fix SQL password-exposure risk



Abstract

Most serious Managed Services Element Management Platforms, which depend on external databases, traditionally do not depend on databases such as Microsoft SQL. This article illustrates one of the reasons: security.

The Problem

"Applications go to great lengths to obfuscate passwords when they are needed within the software, and should not store passwords as 'clear text,' either in memory (as is the case with this vulnerability) or on disk," Sentrigo's advisory stated.

Microsoft has rejected the company's calls to change the way the software handles passwords, saying people with administrative rights already have complete control of the system anyway.

The Response

"Microsoft has thoroughly investigated claims of vulnerabilities in SQL Server and found that these are not product vulnerabilities requiring Microsoft to issue a security update," a spokesman wrote in an email. "An attacker who has administrative rights already has complete control of the system and can install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights."

What this means to Network Management

The problem with passwords being stored in the clear is not that an infected system could have data destroyed on it, but rather other systems what work with that infected system could be infected!

Of course, behaviors like this are rampant with Day-0 Exploits, Microsoft SQL Worms, Microsoft Windows Viruses, etc. Another place to get passwords by malware is just another reason not to implement such a system in an area where customer managed devices are routable.

If a system is storing passwords for thousands of managed systems in the clear, an infection of a central system could be disastrous for the managed customer edge devices.

A developer in a company may have the option to secure passwords or not - but if the developer in a company ever has to meet a PCI audit and the vendor does not offer that option, then the company providing the managed services is placed in tremendous risk.

Oracle Database Licensing: Cuts Own Throat

Oracle Database Licensing: Cuts Own throat

The Register in the UK posted an odd article concerning the licensing change to Oracle

Oracle raises software prices on IBM's Power6 iron

Odd statement regarding IBM POWER6

The Oracle price hike on Power6 chips seems unfair given that the quad-core Sparc64 VII processors used in Sun and Fujitsu machines have the same 0.75 scaling factor

The Power6 processor gains most of it's horsepower from an increase in clock rate (POWER6: 2.2GHz to 5.0Ghz, while SPARC64 processors gain their throughput through an increase in number of cores (SPARC64: 2 to 4 cores), while the CoolThreads SPARC T processor gain their throughput through a massive increase in threads per core (T: 32 threads to 64 threads.)

Multiple SPARC cores for Oracle has been a FREE LUNCH at the expense of SPARC customers.

Odd statement regarding Fujitsu SPARC64

It will be interesting to see what Oracle does when Sun and Fujitsu roll out the Sparc64 VII+ quad-core chips, which they are expected to do soon

I don't know why it would prove interesting. It is not like the clock speed will double, as POWER5 to POWER6. Right now, the core multiplier is completely out-of-whack for the SPARC64 chips, just completely.

Odd statement regarding Intel Itanium

Intel gets its quad-core "Tukwila" Itaniums out the door in June or July. The Tukwila chips should certainly get their scaling factor removed, but given that HP and Intel do not have a database software business, I would venture that Tukwilas might sneak by with a 0.75 scaling factor.

There is a popular & competitive Microsoft SQL Server on those platforms. The scaling factor may remain, to just be competitive with Microsoft SQL Server. If the clock rate doubles, removing the scaling factor removal may be a reasonable thing, but I doubt the clock rate would double.

Odd statement regarding SUN SPARC ROCK

various other Sparc, and other chips have a 100 VUP rating. ...it is hard to imagine a 16-core "Rock" UltraSparc-RK chip not being in the same range when it comes out sometime in the fall.

I highly doubt a 16 core RK chip will be 16x faster than a SPARC64 V, VI, or VII core. This being the case, IBM cranking up the VUP rating would be completely "off the chain". I think this analyst clearly has mistaken expectations from either SUN or IBM.

Reasonable statement regarding Oracle

To be fair, Oracle should run a database benchmark test on each processor and come up with a literal scaling factor based on possible clock speeds of all processors and make the scale all relative to the performance of one machine that it picks as the gold standard.

I agree with this sentiment. Just comparing POWER and the SPARC processors... In the words of President Obama, "to be FAIR":

scaling factor for POWER6 should be 1.50 instead of 0.75
scaling factor for SPARC64 should be 0.50 instead of 0.75
scaling factor for SPARC-T should be 0.50 instead of 0.75

Even with the chart above, POWER would still have an advantage of scaling factor of 0.50 per core over SPARC64 due to IBM's incredibly high clock rate!!!

This clearly demonstrates how far out-of-whack the pricing is for Oracle Databases on systems today.

Oracle cuts their own throat

Former substantial cross-platform vendors like Informix and Sybase are not the large players, like they used to be, resulting in databases being closely aligned to Hardware or OS vendors. Most applications that require a third-party database will use a major commercial vendor, like: Oracle Database, IBM DB2, or Microsoft SQL.

Oracle's continuing punishment of SUN and "giving the farm" away to IBM has always seemed odd, considering that IBM is a direct commercial competitor, while SUN's MySql is not a direct commercial competitor. The migration of Oracle RDBMS to IBM DB2 is something that IBM's professional services is something that they would LOVE to do, while there is no equivalent professional services group in SUN to move Oracle RDBMS to MySQL.

It is just a matter of time before Oracle continues to modify their processor core scaling factors, since they are cutting their own throats by advocating platforms who have extremely strong competing databases... but perhaps that is why Oracle has been able to charge a premium for SPARC - because there was no serious database competition.

By Oracle abusing their near-monopolistic licensing policies on SUN, because Oracle could, Oracle is being forced to compete against other databases on their home turf, instead of on the turf which Oracle could have an advantage (SUN SPARC Solaris has no real commercial competing database vs IBM's DB2 on IBM hardware vs Microsoft SQL on Intel Itanium or Intel x64.)