I’m scheduled to give “The Encryption Primer” at the Boulder SQL Server Users Group on the November 13 meeting. It’s a basic look at the encryption features in SQL Server, updated for SQL Server 2012. This meeting is at the Confio office and will have a short presentation by Mike Fal as well.
The local user group is a great way to meet people in the business, network, and learn a few things. It’s worth a night out of your life every month or two, so come on by.
Today’s editorial was originally released on Dec 4, 2007. It is being republished as Steve is at the PASS Summit.
This is absolutely amazing;over half a million database servers have no firewall. How can you put up a database server, SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, even MySQL, without a firewall?
How can you put any server on the Internet without a firewall? Even most home routers enable a NAT router and basic firewall these days, not allowing connections in by default. In the last 5-6 years, the technology has been widely available, even to uninformed home users, to not deploy any system on the Internet without protection.
So how do these servers get out there? Are these development systems? Are people opening 1433 so they can test an application or access their remote SQL Servers? That’s what I suspect. Many developers I know are optimists and they don’t expect people to be pinging their servers or accessing their systems in any way other than how it’s designed.
We’ve been hacked here at SQLServerCentral.com a few times over the years with SQL Injection techniques, but never to my knowledge with an attack directly against our SQL Server. For a long time we did have our SQL Server exposed, but not on 1433. It was on a high, random port that was unused by any other service and we had strong passwords on accounts. It was a convenience service, we had login tracking, and I never saw an unexpected attempt in our logs.
However if you run a corporate SQL Server and need to stick servers outside your firm’s firewall in some type of DMZ, at least close off port 1433 to anonymous access. Go spend the $100 out of your pocket for a small router that can at least protect your servers with basic NAT and prevent traffic from getting directly to your database server. It might not be the best solution, but it’s better than nothing.
There’s no excuse these days for putting a server out on the Internet without at least basic NAT protection. Some type of router or firewall should protect every server, and probably every computer, and only allow those services that are really needed. For most servers, this is port 80 and nothing else. Allowing access to SQL Server, RPCs, or any other port that’s not meant for anonymous access, is really stupid.
And if you can’t figure out a way to securely make your service available to partners or customers, then you should hire someone that can. There are plenty of networking professionals out there that can help you set things up correctly.
Know your limits, ask for help, and don’t jeopardize your company’s security because of ignorance, pride, or laziness.
Steve Jones
The Voice of the DBA
The podcast feeds are now available atsqlservercentral.podshow.comto get better bandwidth and maybe a little more exposure :). Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted. You can get feeds from there.
Today’s podcast features music by Wakamojo, the Kansas band featuring our very own Adam Angelini, DBA from the heartland and SQLServerCentral.com community member.
I really appreciate and value feedback on the podcasts. Let us know what you like, don’t like, or even send in ideas for the show. If you’d like to comment, post something here. The boss will be sure to read it.
Today’s editorial was originally released on Dec 3, 2007. It is being republished as Steve is at SQL in the City in Seattletoday.
Or will you be working your 35, 30, or even 20?
I saw this article about a report from Gartner that by 2015 many of us will work less than 40 hours. As someone that’s had some success in IT over many years, I could actually see this happening.
Not I, you say. They can’t mean IT workers. Perhaps those secretaries, accontants, marketing folks, and others will negotiate less work per week, but not with those in IT. We work long hours to meet deadlines and have large workloads, on-call and after-hours work, and more.
IT has been one of those areas that has really slipped between the cracks with regard to employment laws and customs in my opinion. We’ve almost been treated like blue-collar workers but paid and expected to work like white collar workers. Add to the fact that most of the time the average person can’t understand what we really do or see the results of our work until it’s finished, and IT workers haven’t really been easy to classify.
But in my opinion we have one huge advantage over many other types of workers: we can work anywhere.
I’m not sure we’ll get better staffing at companies or even lower workloads. But I can see our “core hours”, those times where we have to be in an office, or available for phone calls, shrinking below the 40 hour mark. Especially as telecommuting grows, I’m sure we’ll have less and less structured time in the office.
Initially I would guess that many of us will make up shortfalls with work from home, after hours, on-call, and other methods. I know I typically work 40-50 hours, but it’s 7 days a week, and spread out in 2-3 hour segments throughout those 7 days. I’m as likely to be working Saturday morning as Tuesday afternoon, or even late Sunday night.
I do think that the 20 hour job that is described in the article is interesting, and if someone can figure out how to balance the work and communication in a company, it would be a great idea. How many parents that don’t work would love to apply for a “20 hour, full-time job”, while their kids are at school? In Colorado, we have a number of “year round schools” where the kids go to school for 9 weeks and are off for 3, in four quarters. A few employers have taken advantage of this by balancing 4 workers for 3 slots, knowing that one of them is always off from work, taking care of their children during a break.
I can certainly see that this would be a boon for DBAs. I’ve seen plenty of DBA production jobs that could be handled most of the time in a 20 hour week. Short term consulting could help those crisis situations and if they pay was in the 50-60% of the current range, it would be interesting to me.
I just wonder how many of you would be looking for 2 20-hour jobs. I know I would.
Steve Jones
The Voice of the DBA
The podcast feeds are now available atsqlservercentral.podshow.com to get better bandwidth and maybe a little more exposure :). Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted. You can get feeds from there.
Today’s podcast features music by the beautiful, jazzy, Robin Stine. Check her music out at www.robinstine.com.
I really appreciate and value feedback on the podcasts. Let us know what you like, don’t like, or even send in ideas for the show. If you’d like to comment, post something here. The boss will be sure to read it.
I’ll be live on the PASS TV broadcast on Wednesday, Nov 7, at 11:40am PST. The Professional Development group asked me to do a short (15 minute) talk, and I’ve put together a set of quick blogging tips with a few slides.
If you’re not at the PASS Summit, you can watch this. If you are, I’m sure the recording will be available later.
Voice of the DBA 