Oracle's .NET Developer center

Interesting!

Oracle's .NET Developer center: "Apparently Oracle had announced in December that they would be releasing tools that plug into Visual Studio .NET, to give .NET developers a great experience when developing for the Oracle database. Now that tool has reached beta2, and Oracle has organized a bunch of other content for .NET devs, in te .NET Developer Center. Nice! "

Is Microsoft Double-Dipping on SQL Server Licensing?

Is Microsoft Double-Dipping on SQL Server Licensing?: "When you take a look at Microsoft's newly unveiled pricing and packaging details for SQL Server 2005, it seems at first blush that Microsoft is seriously courting low-end users, what with the introduction of a stripped-down, lower-cost but still enterprise-level version of SQL Server�its new Workgroup edition.
But when you peel off the cover and get a look at the details, there are some nasty surprises squirming around. First and foremost is the fact that, for the first time, Microsoft is introducing CAL (Client Access Licenses) differentiation, wherein the server you choose matters.
In the past, you could buy an SQL Server CAL and use it to access either Standard or Enterprise edition. Now, Microsoft is going for an alternative CAL structure: You not only need to buy a more expensive server license between Workgroup and Standard editions, you also need to buy a more expensive CAL as you move up the edition ladder. "

Lisa Vaas also says she'll write up Microsoft's response - as soon as she gets it.

Choosing the Right Open-Source Database

Choosing the Right Open-Source Database: "On March 1 at 2 p.m. ET, join eWEEK.com Database Center Editor Lisa Vaas; eSeminars host Carmine Gallo; and guest experts Donald Rosenberg, president, Stromian Technologies, and author of Open Source: The Unauthorized White Papers; and Eric Lawson, senior director of database engineering, Innodata Isogen, for a live eSeminar discussion on:
The strengths and weaknesses of the open-source databases now on the market
Which types of projects are likely candidates for moving to an open-source database
Support options from various open-source database companies
Skills you'll need on your staff to support open-source databases
Training available to get your staff up to speed on open-source databases "

The SQL Server Web Data Administrator

The SQL Server Web Data Administrator: "You can download the SQL Server Web Data Administrator from Microsofts Web site."

Building BI Dashboards with Oracle Database 10g, Oracle Discoverer, and Oracle Portal

Building BI Dashboards with Oracle Database 10g, Oracle Discoverer, and Oracle Portal: Wow what a nice article. Mark is doing his best to let people know Oracle has made a sincere and serious effort to extend their reach up the BI stack, which is still very sparse above the database, which they still dominate in the data warehousing world.

Mark walks step by step through how to create a dashboard using all Oracle components.

IBM to embed Cloudscape into PHP

IBM Pushes Open Source and PHP announces that IBM is releasing 30 of its products to open source, all to be hosted on Sourceforge.

Also notes PHP is offering its embedded database, Cloudscape, to Zend, the developers of PHP, specifically to make PHP a more viable alternative for enterprise users.

Kind of cool. I was an author on one of the first articles on the Zend site, when it was still considered quite underground.

EII - Dead on Arrival

EII - Dead on Arrival: "EII vendor's technology has genuine application in trying to answer questions such as: give me a view of the all the data we have on customer x which involves access to current data - what some term 'lightweight BI.' However, they have recently been peddling their products for more general business intelligence applications. After all, why go to all the trouble of building a data warehouse when someone can come along with a technological magic wand?"

Indeed.

SQL Server 2005 Pricing

Microsoft Pitches New Low-Cost, Entry-Level Database Edition has the scoop:

SQL Server 2005 Standard, once the entry point for businesses to buy SQL Server at the enterprise data management level, will cost $5,999 per processor or $2,799 per server plus 10 users. In contrast, Workgroup Edition will cost $3,899 per processor or $739 for the server plus five users, thus offering a considerably lower entry point for SMBs (small and midsize businesses).

In addition, SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition will cost $24,999 per processor or $13,499 for the server plus 25 users.

On the grid linked in the previous post, and in this one, you read about the "Workgroup Edition." What is it? From the article:

Microsoft plans to announce on Thursday SQL Server 2005 Workgroup Edition, a product that sits between the free MSDE (Microsoft Database Engine, or what will be known as Express in the 2005 release) and SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition.

...

"Basically, [Workgroup Edition] is focusing against the open-source database community," he said. "The fact is that the penetration of open-source has been in the lower-level, entry-level database deployments, and that's where the traction is today. Having a Workgroup [Edition] works for customers looking for small scale. A few CPUs is good enough, and the lower price will certainly help. It's a good strategy to look at [to attract] customers looking at low-cost DBMSes."

Also some sketchy info on Oracle and DB2 pricing:

For example, Oracle's Tuning Pack costs $3,000 over its $40,000 per-processor base database system, $3,000 for its Diagnostic Pack, and $10,000 for partitioning. IBM's DB2 Performance Expert costs $10,000 over its $25,000 per-processor base price. Other add-ons include RAC (Real Application Clusters) for Oracle at $20,000 and a BI bundle at $40,000, while both IBM and Oracle charge per core on multicore chips.

All those things are part of the price of the SQL Server 2005 product. In addition, running servers used for passive failover will be free.

SQL Server 2005 editions and feature comparisons announced

Adam Machanic points out SQL Server 2005 editions and feature comparisons announced. Very thorough list, with detail. Analysis Services will be included as part of the Standard Edition.

Oracle 10g Availability Enhancements, Part 4: LogMiner and Data Guard

Oracle 10g Availability Enhancements, Part 4: LogMiner and Data Guard: "Synopsis. Oracle 10g offers significant enhancements that help insure the high availability of any Oracle database, as well as improvements in the database disaster recovery arena. This article - the final in a series - focuses on new functionalities provided by the Data Guard and LogMiner tool suites."

Preliminary 2004 OLAP Market shares are in - Analysis Services is #1 and widens the lead !

Mosha Pasumansky spotted it first. Preliminary 2004 OLAP Market shares are in - Analysis Services is #1 and widens the lead !



It continues the trend of the last few years... not only is Analysis Services widening its lead, but it is the only OLAP server making major gaining in market share, siphoning business off every other platform (with the exception of, from the look of the chart, MicroStrategy, which gained 1% market share.)

If Oracle RAC Crashed Orbitz, Can We Trust 10g?

Also from EWeek, for some perspective:

If Oracle RAC Crashed Orbitz, Can We Trust 10g?: "A few months back, the travel site Orbitz was grounded for a full day due to a technology snarl that it blamed on Oracle's RAC (Real Application Clusters) technology. Considering that RAC is a cornerstone component of Oracle's much-heralded and almost-here Oracle Database 10g and the whole grid computing spectacle that it entails, I thought it might be wise to check into the status of RAC reliability�particularly now that Oracle is filling its collective lungs with more air to trumpet grid computing at the upcoming Oracle AppsWorld show. "

Travel Site deploys Oracle RAC

Travel Site Reserves a Seat on Oracle, Linux: "'We've got a five- to six-to-one increase in performance,' Kress said. 'We're at much less utilization but with much less degradation and response time. We have room to spare, where we would have been overcommitted on that E4500.'
One of the sweetest parts: MLT is on track to save about $1 million in costs over the next five years as a result of the move. Corona said that some $200,000 will be saved in equipment and operating system maintenance, and some $100,000 or so will be in adjunct items such as training costs.
'Maintaining [the E4500s] and enterprise-class machines for PeopleSoft [Inc. applications] � we're looking at stuff that's continually getting more expensive to maintain,' Kress said. 'Just [based on] the performance of Intel processors, coupled with Linux, coupled with Oracle, plus the maturity [of Linux], and how vendors are supporting it now, we realized we could trim hardware and software maintenance costs a great deal,' he said.
But the real kicker is licensing costs: Some 50 percent of savings, or about $500,000, is going to be whittled out of Oracle license and maintenance costs over the next five years. "

Nice!

BPEL: Oracle

Tug's Blog: BPEL: Edwin answer to Dutch'Rant post

If you are interested by BPEL you can take a look to the blog entry 'BPEL: Yes or No?' and the answer/comments from Edwin (VP of Development of Oracle BPEL Process Manager).

Nice write up of a real world BPEL installation, with some concerns spotted. It was replied to by Oracle's VP of BPEL Processes. Good info from the real world.

Master of the Data: Yahoo!'s Chief Data Officer

Intelligent Enterprise Magazine: Master of the Data talks to Usama Fayyad, Yahoo's first Chief Data Officer. I think Yahoo won't be the first one we see out there, the value of someone to coordinate data use should be quite obvious.

Why have a chief data officer?

Not everything should be lumped under the CIO function. Data is a strategic asset, often a revenue source. It's both extremely important and extremely underutilized. Companies not appointing senior management to think about data assets and to have a voice in the organization are doomed to be a lot less competitive.

Optimizing Database products for Individual Applications

IBM and SAP Stack Up DB2 talk about a possible new trends - DB vendors customizing their products individually for major software packages. Good idea? From a DBAs perspective I wouldn't think so - more specialized needs are required, plus it reduces the ability to consolidate many different databases. It can make performance better though, I can see that. It may be a tough call for some companies if this catches on.w

Understanding changes in Yukon MDX Part I

Some great, nowhere-else information from Mosha Pasumansky, Understanding changes in Yukon MDX Part I. He explains a webcast was prepared for an introduction to the MDX changes, but apparently lost in the ether, so he has made the slides available on his site.

He is also seeking suggestions for material to focus on in a more targeted presentation.

Database Legend: How Real-Time Data Analysis Will Transform Society

Database Legend: How Real-Time Data Analysis Will Transform Society is an interview with Mike Stonebreaker, who is getting alot of mileage out of the fact that he is the father of PostGres and Ingres.

Now he runs Steambase Systems, which is getting alot of attention in the press lately. It is a real-time database that runs completely in memory and is lightning fast. What does real time mean?

What accounts for this speed gain?

There are three big reasons: One, the elephants store the data. There's no need to store the data. One of the characteristics of real-time, streaming data, it's like IT sushi. It has high value right now, and the value decays very quickly. There's no need to keep the data around for the long term in some sort of repository. That just takes up time, latency and resources to do that.

Reason No. 2 is when you're looking for the inter-arrival time between ticks, that's a time-series notion. When you're doing real-time stream processing, we have time-oriented primitives in the bottom of the screen. … We have extended SQL to something we call StreamSQL, which has extra stuff in it. … We've had to add another notion to SQL, the notion of time windows. You can do SQL-like calculations over time windows. Do them in real time as data is flying by. …

[Finally,] if you want to count to 100, which is what this [application] had to do in order to decide to ring the red phone, the most efficient way to do that is with four lines of C++. In this application, it makes sense to mix small amounts of code in a general-purpose environment with database-oriented processing steps. We can do that in our architecture: freely intermix C++ with our StreamSQL primitives. The relational guys all run client/server, and C++ code has to run in the client in a separate place from the server. So the client/server architecture slows you down on this style of application.

A recommended read, because this won't go away, and it wil be useful to know how to explain the hype, especially for someone who finds utility in storing data.

MySQL Serves Up Database Support, IP Indemnification for All

MySQL Serves Up Database Support, IP Indemnification for All: "MySQL AB, maker of the world's most popular open-source database, is offering platinum-level, round-the-clock support�formerly available only for large-scale deployments�for sites of any size, be they one or 1,000 servers."

Pie Charts in SQL - how pathetic can you get?

� Pie Charts in SQL - how pathetic can you get? is hardly pathetic.. I love it! It shows how to return an ascii pie chart using SQL in Oracle.

Reminds me of that old TTYQuake. A mark of genius if you ask me.

SwitchBL8's gebazel - Oracle BI add-in for Excel

SwitchBL8's gebazel - Oracle BI add-in for Excel: "Oracle released an add-in for Microsoft Excel, that enables end users to display and navigate Oracle OLAP data from within Excel, and treat it just like other Excel data. Thanks for noticing, Amis. Let's see if we can use it to replace Discoverer... "

Interview with head of Microsoft's BI team

Business Intelligence Insider points to these B-EYE Network 20 minute interviews, all very good. One of particular interest is the one with Bill Baker, who manages Microsoft's BI team. Some good info in there, including that future versions of Reporting Services should include more front ends for customer use against Analysis Services.

Interview with head of Microsoft's BI team

Business Intelligence Insider points to these B-EYE Network 20 minute interviews, all very good. One of particular interest is the one with Bill Baker, who manages Microsoft's BI team. Some good info in there, including that future versions of Reporting Services should include more front ends for customer use against Analysis Services.

Interview with head of Microsoft's BI team

Business Intelligence Insider points to these B-EYE Network 20 minute interviews, all very good. One of particular interest is the one with Bill Baker, who manages Microsoft's BI team. Some good info in there, including that future versions of Reporting Services should include more front ends for customer use against Analysis Services.

IBM DB2 Flaws Found

IBM DB2 Flaws Found: "Several flaws have been discovered in IBM's DB2 Universal Database that can be exploited to cause DoS attacks, to reveal sensitive information, to read and manipulate file content, or to compromise vulnerable systems.
An advisory posted Thursday on the bug-reporting site Secunia rates the flaws as moderately critical, with IBM having already issued a FixPak for DB2 versions 8.x."

HP and Intel round on Oracle over dual-core licences - ZDNet UK News

HP and Intel round on Oracle over dual-core licences - ZDNet UK News addresses the newest version of CPUs coming out in force shortly - single chips that essentially have 2 or more "cores," equivalent to the circuitry on a single chip today. It means chip prices will continue to fall, while doubling or quadrupling the processing power available. Cool stuff.

As the article states, the trouble is how software vendors will deal with license charges. MS has already announced they will still treat multi-core processors as single CPUs for licensing purposes, but Oracle is trying to stand its ground. Sooner or later theyll have to cave. The cost discrepency will just be too big to swallow otherwise.

Email alerts for XRMS

When my partners and me started our company last April, we knew we needed some sort of CRM system. We were bootstrappers though, and couldn't afford a Siebel, Microsoft CRM, or even Salesforce.com. For cash flow's sake we decided to use an open source alternative if one existed.

We chose XRMS, and I will be a reference that it is a great product, especially the later versions. Very full featured, right on par with all the commercial versions out there, and meets our needs. We have over 100 companies and several hundred contacts in it, and use it daily. There are a couple of things I'd like to add, but they are things nearly all CRM systems are missing (for example, WAP support). One was the need for reminders of scheduled follow up calls, etc, since although it is easy to schedule the follow-ups, you actually have to be logged into the website to see them.

So I put a Perl script together to do it... if you use XRMS I think you'll find it useful.

And if you or your company is considering getting a system, or replacing a dated one, check out XRMS.

New .NET Rocks! on SQL Server 2005

New .NET Rocks! on SQL Server 2005: "Special guest this time is regional director Stephen Forte. He talks about what he likes in SQL Server 2005, as well as clustering and RAID strategies. You can check it out at http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showID=100. "

Viewing email in MSN Messenger

In Marts the man - Exchange in Messenger Tariq points to someone who describes how to make tabbed windows in a Messenger client. They specifically mention bringing up the web pages associated with Exchange OWA to view webmail, but the concepts shoul be aplicable to any webmail system. Cool!

A New Way To Manage Vendors - Vendor Management - CIO Magazine Feb 1,2005

A New Way To Manage Vendors - Vendor Management - CIO Magazine Feb 1,2005 - useful overview of a current trend. There was another article a few months ago in CIO about how GM intends to manage vendors much more like the government does, with "super contractors" managing many sub-contractors. I think this is the way most large companies will eventually go, the benefits are pretty good.

ebPML: The Path to BPM

ebPML Radio gives the state of the union for web services and the Service Oriented Structure:

So here we are in 2005: we still don't have EndPoint references, RM, Transaction, we kind of have a bit of security, not to mention that people are confused about BPEL and therefore they are not really rushing to buy BPEL products. Data 'flows". If web services created the pipes to flow this data relatively seamlessly, we are still missing the grand vision of SOA, i.e. an engine behind SOA, a BPM-based engine behind it.

He mentions fixing WSDL a little bit, and to get done with the WS specs.

Sometimes I think, when looking at the complete alphabet soup of of WS standards, that things have gotten out of hand. The whole promise of web services and automation is that things were supposed to get less complicated, and more straightforward. One of the advantages of XML is that it was easily readable... and the list goes on. All of those things seem to have gone out the window in this WS-mess.

Old school integration experts will tell you COM+ worked, but the standards became way too complicated for regular, widespread use. The same can be said for EDI. All of these BPEL standards look destined for the same fate - no one will understand how to use them without years of study. It will be a shame if that's how things turn out, because it lloks like the motivation and inspiration for the architecture in the first place has been lost.

Rebuilding SQL Server Cluster Nodes

A useful reference from Database Journal: Rebuilding SQL Server Cluster Nodes: "This article explains how to rebuild the node that failed and attach it back to the cluster."

SOX Compliance...

SOX Compliance... from Josh Crosby is the first review I have seen if Microsoft's Sarbanes-Oxley Accelerator, a free download.

Rittman: Julian Ford On Using BI Beans with an XMLA Provider

FromMark Rittman,who brings us Julian Ford On Using BI Beans with an XMLA Provider.

In layman's terms, that's how you can use Oracle Java compnents to query any XMLA compatible OLAP source, which includes Analysis Services, Hyperion, and others. Bravo!

LibOFX: The OpenSource OFX parser library

Just had to point outLibOFX: The OpenSource OFX parser library. Saw it linked off Slashdot, and it will probably come in handy for alot of developers working in Banks.

2004 OLAP report - what happened last year?

What's New and What's Not? is by Nigel Pendse, the author if the comprehensive OLAP Report that tracks trends and market shares in the OLAP world. Some kind of interesting things in the report, some probing questions were ased, such as what products have the highest ratio of people reporting data quality problems?


Microsoft AS is pretty far up there indeed. Ease of use (which equals opportunity to get in over your head)might have something to do with it. SAP BW has no such excuse.

And the old standby Oracle Express wins, maybe because things were simpler back then? Might be more to it.

How about ratio of respondents unhappy with performance?



Oracle OLAP does very well (as does MS AS), but Oracle Discoverer is by far in last place.

And overall, SAP BW has things to work on, although obviously the sales force is not one of them.

BI Briefs: Six Business Intelligence Trends for 2005

Rick Sherman writes in DMReview BI Briefs: Six Business Intelligence Trends for 2005.

Highlights: More mid-tier businesses will purchase data warehouses, and BI standardization will finally start to be managed by IT.

Getting Users to Clamor for Your New BI System

Volume Analytics: Getting Users to Clamor for Your New System has some suggestions on getting people to adopt the new BI suite someine in your company just bought. Some things:

Make the System a Scarce Resource so People Have to Ask for It
Let Envy Rear Its Ugly Head
Go for the Groundswell

All of which are a sure recipe.... for failure. Want everyone to complain, and take all the blame? There's how to do it.

Instead, try getting executive support. And I don't mean just rubber stamp report, but the kind of support that comes from statements like "from now on, you will report x to me, and I want to see y, and the only way to get it is to use these BI tools." If you are trying to get this support, and you already have a product, it's too late. The time to get this kind of support is before you even begin. If you can't get it, don't bother.

So what if you're an employee, trying to sell your boss on a BI solution, and he doesn't get it? He isn't willing to use it in this way, to hold others accountable for using , by tying their performance to the metrics that come from the tools? At that point you either need to stay, and accept the fact that cutting edge technology is not valued where you are, and learn to live with it, or move on. There are places out there that will listen to someone with a vision. If you have the stomach, try to find such a place.

Microsoft Data Access Technologies Road Map

Visual Studio Home: Data Access Technologies Road Map is a comprehensive list of the different data access methods currently supported on MS platforms. It also lists what technologies are no longer supported (such as SQL XML, and old Access DAO).

Sun offers processing by the hour

Pretty Interesting!BBC NEWS | Technology | Sun offers processing by the hour:

Mr Schwartz ran a demonstration of the service, showing how data could be processed in a protein folding experiment. Hundreds of servers were used simultaneously, working on the problem for a few seconds each.

Although it only took a few seconds, the experiment cost $12 (�6.30) because it had used up 12 hours' worth of computing power.

Mark Rittman: Seth Grimes On Linux OLAP And The Eclipse BIRT Project

Seth Grimes On Linux OLAP And The Eclipse BIRT Project - great overview and commentary by Mark. OLAP is definitely an area where open-source alternatives are far behind.

How to restore an Analysis Services database using the msmdarch command

How to restore an Analysis Services database using the msmdarch command. Good bookmark, can come in handy:

Open a command prompt.


(Optional.) Use the cd command to access the directory containing the msmdarch.exe file. By default, this file is at the following location:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Analysis Services\Bin

Type a valid msmdarch command with the /r or /rs switch. The full syntax and an example are shown later in this topic.


Press ENTER.

You can archive using that command also.

SQL Injection Attacks...

Kirk Haselden SQL Injection Attacks... links to a writeup on SQL injection attacks that has a ton of examples. It's scary, but fun to read, and shows how you can discover and navigate a schema, get full table dumps, and new fields, get passwords mailed to you from applications, etc, etc, etc.

If you ever wondered what the big deal is about SQL Injection, read it...