Systems Management

Archive for September, 2011

Every day the demand for a good database management system is increasing. The fact is that information is growing and expanding faster than ever. And this makes sense — all old records still need to be stored and saved, while new records are being added and updated daily. Even companies that five years ago had no use for a database management system are now struggling to even get a handle on the simplest information, as it relates to their customers.

All database management systems have one goal in mind — to take the information you enter into it, and store it effectively. Then, when you need to get that information back, you can access it quickly, without any problem or headaches.

Additionally, you want the feature of being able to access all of your information in one singular central location. What good is all your information going to be if it is scattered about on various disparate systems? If the accounting is on one computer, your inventory on another computer, and your sales information on a third computer, you will not be able to make the necessary snap decisions that are required in the business world.

Another feature many database management systems have is to give you the ability to make complex statistical and data analysis, so you can make the most accurate decision as quickly as possible, since time is money in business.

In addition to those features, another good feature of a database management system is its ability to stay secure. This is especially true, as it relates to hospitals. Most hospitals have very sensitive information about their patients, which could put them in legal problems if that information was accessed.

You want to make sure that you have proper security on your database management system, otherwise your information may be compromised. Nobody wants their competitors to get a get hold of their client list, and hospitals and psychiatrists, among others, have a duty to keep their information about their clients confidential.

Security can be enforced on each individual application that exists within a database management system, or it can be set up on the system itself. This will depend upon how many users are accessing the system, and how many applications are running on that system.

In conclusion, I’ve given you some of the basic features that make up a good database management system.

MySQL databases are the world’s most popular open source database option. Also commonly known as “My Sequel” the software provides multi level user access to a number of databases. MySQL Databases effectively function as a server operating as a fully fledged relational database management system.

The development of MySQL began back in 1994 with its first release mid 1995. Since then the package has evolved through numerous stages. MySQL database server 5.6 is expected for release shortly. The system was originally developed by Michael Widenius’ whose daughter incidentally was called My; while the SQL phrase stands for Structured Query Language.

To this day MySQL remains as free open source software. However, there are also commercial based packages with added functionality starting from $2,000 for an annual subscription with Oracle who took over Sun Microsystems in early 2010. Whichever version is in use MySQL dominates database management across the world. The package is used by web Goliath’s such as Wikipedia and FaceBook and is even used by Google (although not in search). MySQL is also used in popular applications including WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, MyBB and phpBB amongst others.

MySQL databases are popular for a good reason. The setup enables the rapid delivery of high performance, read-intensive applications. MySQL rises above other RDBMS systems by providing additional functionality including a number of different storage engine options. Storage engines are also dynamically loaded at run time further increasing performance.

It is possible to build and install MySQL databases from its source code. However, this can be a very laborious task so more often than not it is installed from a binary package which can then be customised as and when required. On most Linux based platforms the MySQL package can be downloaded and installed with minimal fuss. Originally MySQL was developed as a low end alternative to commercial packages but it has also evolved to support high end needs maintaining the simplicity of use that made so popular. The true beauty of MySQL databases lies in its scalability and the setup can be deployed on distributed server clusters with a number of added performance functions such as caching ensuring the stability of the platform.

Today most web hosting-plans and companies offer MySQL hosting, it is the common standard database used by most open-source developed websites. Do be aware of how a MySQL database is used by the code on your website, there are many very inefficient ways to access a MySQL database and there are of course many more effective ways to use data in a MySQL database. Ensure you choose experienced website developers if your site will handle lots of traffic.

Given the explosive growth of electronic information in corporate America, managing electronic discovery is increasingly a challenge for corporate IT departments, in-house and outside counsel, each of whom are stakeholders. In December of 2006, the Judicial Conference of the US amended the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) to clarify the roles, responsibilities and discovery obligations of the various parties to litigation. The amendments, for the first time, made specific reference to electronically stored information, or ESI, as it is now commonly known. The changes in attitudes toward e-discovery are noticeable and the amendments have, without question, helped create an unprecedented level of dialog and collaboration to understand how electronic information is created, used, managed and disposed of in the corporate environment.

Why, then, have the amendments, intended to reduce confusion, also introduced a level of complexity to the e-discovery process that has left a lot of people scratching their heads?

For example, corporate counsel in a defense posture is keyed in on everything from creating corporate data maps to handling multiple and complex litigation holds, as well as establishing repeatable and defensible guidelines for discovery. What happens the following week when the storage administrator retires a key server and implements his data consolidation strategy? How good is the data map then?

Records retention managers have also been significantly affected. For years, they have been seen as silent corporate operatives who had murky roles and dealt with boxes of old documents. Today, nothing could be further from the truth. They are on the front lines of protecting an organization from a data management policy perspective.

Another role that has seen significant evolution is that of the “storage administrator.” Corporate data storage administrators are IT personnel whose roles are largely characterized by their knowledge of an organization’s data growth and proliferation patterns – key factors that allow them to make recommendations as to how, when and if an organization’s data management hardware and associated software platforms need modification or change.

Another driver is the evolution of technology for e-discovery to serve both proactive and reactive use cases. The vast majority of matters today are addressed in a reactive fashion with a mind to quickly address pressing, active concerns that demand rapid retrieval of responsive ESI for early case assessments, meet and confer and other matter-specific requirements. However, the future is clear in that there is a need for consistent, repeatable and targeted e-discovery processes that can also be deployed across a company, creating an “e-discovery ready,” proactive environment.

Therefore, the answer may lie in the fact that while the amendments impose obligations on the parties, they don’t specifically state how one should go about fulfilling them. When it comes to corporations today, the old silo-based information management paradigms will not work when it comes to information discovery of any kind, for any reason. The bottom line is: litigation, storage management/data consolidation, records retention, regulatory responses, internal investigations, information security initiatives, personnel policy management, business intelligence, data mining, compliance and monitoring are all effectively subsets of what we call “e-discovery.” This new paradigm of e-discovery subsumes many previously compartmentalized departmental initiatives that are under the auspices of legal, IT, records management, HR and finance. It is predicated on the degree to which an organization has information access and the ability to perform effective data classification. In short, companies should be able to leverage enterprise data for multiple business needs from a common underlying information access and classification platform.