Choosing the right cloud model for your business

Once you have determined that cloud computing will benefit your business, the next step is choosing the right cloud model. 

There are numerous options available and this part of the process can be confusing. 

In this blog, Myriad IT examines the key considerations and attributes of the main models.

 Control & customisation

Private cloud

With private cloud, the cloud is built and managed internally by the company. Private cloud is sought after by companies requiring a high degree of direct control over information and security.

Whilst private cloud offers the highest level of control and customisation, it is not always necessary for an organisation to invest in the establishment of a private cloud. A carefully selected 3^rd party vendor of public cloud may be able to meet control, customisation and security requirements through public cloud.

Public cloud

With public cloud, cloud computing services are provided by 3^rd party vendors. Customers share data centre resources and access cloud services via the Internet. Public cloud offers varying degrees of privacy and control depending on the vendor.

There are 2 models for the provision of public cloud:

 1.  Subscription style managed services

These feature pay-as-you go access to cloud services such as out of the box applications like ERP or CRM or packaged storage. It is common with this model that the provider takes ownership of data in the cloud and there is limited or no control over how services are provided. The advantage of these services are their relative simplicity and that users keep up with the latest features and functionality. 

2. Tailored services 

Some 3^rd party public cloud providers (such as Myriad IT), offer tailored data centre services with logically separated infrastructure and no rights to data stored. This enables customers to utilise cloud services for customised applications, tailor cloud computing services to meet specific business needs and retain control of when and if upgrades, patches and so forth are implemented.

 

Geographic location of data (within Australia)

The physical location of data may be an issue where: 

• Sovereignty of data is a requirement. For example many government organisations require that all data remain in Australia. 
• Geographically distinct data centres may be advantageous for disaster recovery. 

Security

We touched on security in our previous blog post. It is our view that most cloud vendors now have sophisticated security but poor implementation and configuration can leave unintended gaps in data or systems. Read the security blog post here.

Myriad IT
www.myriad-it.com
03-8530-8600

 

 

Worried about cloud security? Here's what you need to consider.

The recent hacking of celebrity iCloud accounts has once again shone the spotlight on cloud security. The decision to run systems and applications in the cloud introduces a number of security considerations. 

Most cloud vendors now have sophisticated security. It is important to note however, that poor implementation and configuration may leave gaps in security which unintentionally exposes data or systems.

In this blog post, Myriad IT sets out what key security considerations for evaluating cloud providers. 

 Key security considerations:

What data will be stored in the cloud?

Who else has access to the data and systems?

While the cloud provider may be compliant with security requirements, are the specific systems in the cloud properly secured in line with corporate policies?

How much rigour has gone into security planning?

Has the security been reviewed by technical and business risk experts?

What steps does the provider take to mitigate risk?

Is the provider able to demonstrate its capabilities (e.g. securitgy certifications, audits)?

Is the vendor willing to commit to you with a well defined SLA and set of standards?

If you have concerns about the security of your cloud, Myriad IT is here to help. Please contact us for a discussion.

Myriad IT
www.myriad-it.com
 

Quick Tips for Oracle DBAs

PROBLEM #1 : Need to set the environment each time you login to SQLPLUS?

SOLUTION: Edit login.sql or gloging.sql and enter the setting you need.

This will be used each time you login. 

 vi  $ORACLE_HOME/sqlplus/admin/glogin.sql

SET FEEDBACK OFF

SET TERMOUT OFF

COLUMN X NEW_VALUE Y

SET SQLPROMPT "_USER'@'_CONNECT_IDENTIFIER _DATE> " or  SELECT LOWER(USER || '@' || SYS_CONTEXT('userenv', 'instance_name')) X FROM dual;

SET SQLPROMPT '&Y> '

ALTER SESSION SET NLS_DATE_FORMAT='DD-MON-YYYY HH24:MI:SS';

ALTER SESSION SET NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT='DD-MON-YYYY HH24:MI:SS.FF';

SET TERMOUT ON

SET FEEDBACK ON

SET LINESIZE 100

SET TAB OFF

SET TRIM ON

SET TRIMSPOOL ON

PROBLEM #2: Finding the folder sizes in Linux/Solaris

SOLUTION:du -h -s *

2.2G   AUDRPRD

3.6M   AUDRPROD

  11M   Backup

  80G   E1PROD

120K   E1PROD_RESTORE

   0K   lost+found

232M   SOMEPROD

PROBLEM #3: Unix command out is in bytes and it is hard to covert in readable format, try using h as an attribute.

SOLUTION: ls –alt OR ls –alth

ls –alt

drwxr-xr-x   2 oracle   dba        22016 Jul  7 15:27 SOMEPROD

drwxr-xr-x   2 oracle   dba        18944 Jul  7 15:17 AUDRPROD

ls –alth

drwxr-xr-x   2 oracle   dba        22kb Jul  7 15:27 SOMEPROD

Satheesh Shanmugan, Database Administrator
Myriad IT

Filtering on SQL Server Reporting Services datasets

I’ve been building reports in SSRS for about five years and almost always do all filtering in the SQL WHERE clause.  Over the last week I’ve been refining a report and needed an additional filter that would have been challenging within the query and in the process of investigating an alternative approach I came across dataset filters in SSRS.

As mentioned, I normally do all filtering in the SQL WHERE clause.  My rationale is that it reduces the size of the amount of data returned and is therefore more efficient and quicker.  The report I am currently working on returns information about millions of invoice rows from four tables all via LEFT OUTER JOINS (to ensure I capture all invoices).  One of the required filters is on a field not in the left outer most table and needs logic to handle the prospective nulls returned.

Rather than rewriting the query to handle this, and risking the integrity of the dataset, I found Dataset filters in the SSRS report itself.  By right clicking on the dataset and selecting Properties there is a Filter tab:

 

This offers a very flexible way of controlling the returned data much like a SQL where clause.  Some advantages are:

·         It maintains the query’s integrity.  Sometimes I build a query and verify the data with the business.  Then I am then asked to add additional constraints and these additional WHERE clause conditions then break the integrity of the data returned.  Since the filter doesn't alter the underlying query, the integrity should remain in tact

·         The filter is extremely flexible.  Like a WHERE clause it can operate using a report parameter with all the usual SQL operators

·         SSRS expressions can offer additional flexibility similar to a HAVING clause and nested clauses

·         An expression returning a boolean TRUE / FALSE offers similar functionality to an EXISTS (and NOT EXISTS) clause

 

·         It can be implemented very quickly in comparison to rewriting underlying queries and then revalidating data.

I don’t think I’ll stop filtering within the SQL WHERE clause where I can, but it is a great feature and certainly offers flexibility in filtering data in a SSRS report.

 

Struan Hijner – Infrastructure Services Practice Manager
www.myriad-it.com