Scalable federated security with Kerberos

In my last post, I outlined considerations that need to be taken into account when choosing between a centralized and federated security model. So, how do we implement the chosen model? Based on a real-world case study, I will outline a Kerberos architecture that enables cutting-edge collaborative research through federated sharing of resources. This is an extract from the full article which can be downloaded here.

Business continuity with real-time data integration

Enterprises want to protect their data. As the appetite for data volumes grows, storage technology becomes a critical business asset on which business continuity relies. My recent survey in the medium-size enterprise segment shows the five dominant investment directions at the level of data management architecture: disaster recovery (DR), high availability (HA), backup, data processing performance and migration to more advanced databases.

This suggests that corporations generally have sufficiently structured data collections but are concerned with business continuity and continuous availability of data. What infrastructures can provide these assurances?

The cost of High Availability (HA) with Oracle

What's the cost of downtime to your business?  $100,000 per hour, $1,000,000 or more? The recent volcanic ash that has grounded European flights is estimated to be costing the airlines $200M a day. In the IT world, High Availability (HA) architectures allow for disaster recovery as well as uninterrupted business continuity during system failure.

This post focuses on a customer’s backend, comprised of a business application stack supported by a dozen Oracle databases. They wish to equip this infrastructure with HA features and ensure that outages do not cost business. How do we address the challenge of pricing the complete solution, with hardware, software, services and annual support?

When to migrate your database?

Why migrate your database? Efficiency and availability problems are harming your business - reports are out of date, your batch processing window is nearing its limits, outages (unplanned/planned) frequently halt work. Database consolidation removes the costs that result from a heterogeneous database environment (DBAs time, database vendor pricing, database versions, hardware, OSs, patches, upgrades etc.). OK, so the driving forces for migration are clear,  what now?

Scale out your identity management

BigDataMatters is focused on the issues faced when processing and managing large amounts of data. In light of this, it would be a crime not to blog about the security of this data. Over the next few weeks, I will write a series of posts focused on Identity management in the enterprise. Before you read any more, how is your identity secured?

Oracle and IBM databases: Disk-based vs In-memory

The case for in-memory databases (IMDB) can be made in three simple points (1) performance - data is kept in RAM so no disk I/O limitations (2) HA with built in fail-over (3) support for relational schema and SQL. Current disk based RDBMS can run out of steam when processing large data. Can these problems be solved by migrating from a disk based RDBMS to an IMDB? Any limitations? To find out, I tested one of each from the two leading vendors who together hold 70% of the market share - Oracle's 11g and TimesTen 11g, and IBM's DB2 v9.5 and solidDB 6.3.

Big Data on Grids or on Clouds?

Wolfgang Gentzsch, Senior Strategist at GridwiseTech, Open Grid Forum, and EU Project DEISA

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Now that we have a new computing paradigm, Cloud Computing, how can Clouds help our data? Replace our internal data vaults as we hoped Grids would? Are Grids dead now that we have Clouds? Despite all the promising developments in the Grid and Cloud computing space, and the avalanche of publications and talks on this subject, many people still seem to be confused about internal data and compute resources, versus Grids versus Clouds, and they are hesitant to take the next step. I think there are a number of issues driving this uncertainty.

Need for change in your IT infrastructure

Companies earnings outstrip forecasts, consumer confidence is retuning and city bonuses are back. What does this mean for business? Growth! After the recent years of cost cutting in IT budgets, there is the sudden fear induced from increased demand. Pre-existing trouble points in IT infrastructures that have lain dormant will suddenly be exposed. Monthly reporting and real time analytics will suffer as data grows. IT departments across the land will be crying out “The engine canna take no more captain”. What can be done?

Manage virtualized sprawl with VRMs

The essence of my work is coming into daily contact with innovative technologies. A recent example was at the request of a partner company who wanted to answer- which one of these tools will best solve my virtualized datacenter headache? After initial analysis all the products could be classified as tools that troubleshoot VM sprawl, but there was no universally accepted term for them. The most descriptive term  that I found was Virtual Resource Manager (VRM) from DynamicOps. As I delved deeper into their workings, the distinction between VRMs and Private Clouds became blurred. What are the differences?

Pilgrimage to OracleWorld

Oracle OpenWorld 2009 starts next week (11–15 October) in the Moscone Center, San Francisco. It is the annual event for all things Oracle - 1,800 sessions, 400 partner exhibits, keynotes from the world’s technology leaders, hands-on labs, and more. With such a wealth of information available, the canny attendee will have to focus their attention on the issues that are hindering their IT's infrastructure. What is worth seeing?