Voice of the DBA

Category: Uncategorized

  • iPhone Stockholm Syndrome?

    I’m not sure it’s true. I don’t think I have iPhone Stockholm Syndrome, as suggested by the article. It’s actually written about mobile operators, not end users, but it does raise some interesting points.

    I’ve had a lot of people say that they won’t buy an iPhone because it’s a closed platform, and it locks you into Apple’s business model. They prefer Windows Mobile, Android, or Blackberry instead. I don’t get the last one because as handy as a Blackberry is, you’re locked into RIM and even need to purchase a license for their server to get the benefits (or subscribe to a telco version of the server).

    I’ve said it before, that I think the iPhone is the best phone I’ve had. I had a Windows Mobile 5.x and a 6.0 phone, both of which I liked, but I had hardware issues. Actually I had a Dash that was too fragile for life on a ranch. After breaking 3 of them, I moved to a Sidekick. That worked, but it was an older, antiquated interface (I had a Sidekick 3) and didn’t serve my purposes that well for the modern techie.

    Then I got a G1, the first Android phone on the market. I thought that was much better than Windows Mobile, and the phone itself was more durable. I liked the interface, and thought that the touch screen was very handy. Over time I found myself using the virtual keyboard instead of the physical one.

    However then I got an iPhone. I had a chance to get one for free and jailbreak/unlock it, so I did and I loved it. The main thing that prompted me to move was that I had been reading on my iTouch and listening to music, both of which did not work well on my G1. For one thing I didn’t have an easy way to sync itunes and the G1, and there weren’t any bookstores with reading apps for the G1. I had hoped Barnes and Noble would build one, but as of the time I’m writing this, they still haven’t.

    The iPhone, while the hardware and software is closed by Apple, still allow lots of apps to be distributed. I know the Google Voice thing got them upset, but I think that was more an ATT issue than an Apple one. Yes, with a more open OS it might not have been blocked, but the networks still might have prevented the packets from going to Google Voice.

    Windows Mobile is controlled by Microsoft and while you can install apps on your phone, they don’t have a good storefront from which to get apps, nor is there support or backing. In fact, when I had a phone and had issues, the carriers refused to talk about problems there. Maybe things have changed there, but when working with T-Mobile, they were more than happy to help me get it working and even offer advice.

    Android has lots of apps, but the lack of a mature store was something I noticed right away, especially away from the phone. I don’t want to do everything on the phone because it’s just hard. The iTunes/iPhone integration is smooth, I can buy from either interface and have things synced without my doing anything more than plugging in my phone.

    Perhaps I have some Stockholm Syndrome, but from what I’ve seen so far, the iPhone is just a more mature platform right now. I don’t expect that to change in 2010, but I bet by 2011 that Android, and perhaps Windows Mobile will copy a lot of the iTunes features and we’ll be back to buying phones more on price because all the features will be available on all platforms.

  • Securing Log Shipping

    There was a post recently where someone was asking about securing log shipping to comply with HIPAA requirements. It struck me at first that really log shipping isn’t a SQL Server operation, it’s a Windows operation. The ongoing process of log shipping is:

    • Perform a SQL Server log backup
    • File sits on the local Windows file system for some xxx time
    • Copy the log file to the remote server
    • The file sits on the remote Windows file system for some yyy time
    • Restore the log backup to the SQL Server instance

    Of these, they break down in terms of security and possible issues in this way.

  • Perform a SQL Server log backup (SQL Server process, secure)
  • File sits on the local Windows file system for some xxx time (Windows security needed)
  • Copy the log file to the remote server (Standard SMB copy, Windows security needed)
  • The file sits on the remote Windows file system for some yyy time (Windows security needed)
  • Restore the log backup to the SQL Server instance (SQL Server process, secure)

    The only real places to provide security are from Windows, where you need to do the following:

    • Assign tight Windows security to a limited access group, preferably only service accounts for SQL Server.
    • Ensure network communications between the two Windows servers is secure with something like IPSec.

    This means to me that this is primarily a Windows issue, and that the DBA needs to work with the Windows admin to implement an IPSec policy or setup a secure tunnel. Here’s one link I found, but not being a strong Windows admin, I’m not sure if it’s the best one. The idea would be that you would want to secure the network traffic to prevent a third party from copying the log backup somehow.

    Is it a big deal? I’m not sure about that. I think this is an item that auditors might be concerned about more than it is a security risk. After all, even if a hacker acquired an old full backup and a log backup, they wouldn’t necessarily be able to restore the log backup since the LSNs would be out of order. And while a log backup might contain sensitive information, an attacker couldn’t guarantee that any particular log backup would have sensitive information. Only if that information were edited would it be included in a log backup.

    The big security downside is that whatever channel or method you use here would likely be the same one used for initialize things and include a full backup somewhere. So it’s a good idea to provide tight security, and not just set up shares that Everyone can access.

  • Securing Log Shipping

    There was a post recently where someone was asking about securing log shipping to comply with HIPAA requirements. It struck me at first that really log shipping isn’t a SQL Server operation, it’s a Windows operation. The ongoing process of log shipping is:

    • Perform a SQL Server log backup
    • File sits on the local Windows file system for some xxx time
    • Copy the log file to the remote server
    • The file sits on the remote Windows file system for some yyy time
    • Restore the log backup to the SQL Server instance

    Of these, they break down in terms of security and possible issues in this way.

  • Perform a SQL Server log backup (SQL Server process, secure)
  • File sits on the local Windows file system for some xxx time (Windows security needed)
  • Copy the log file to the remote server (Standard SMB copy, Windows security needed)
  • The file sits on the remote Windows file system for some yyy time (Windows security needed)
  • Restore the log backup to the SQL Server instance (SQL Server process, secure)

    The only real places to provide security are from Windows, where you need to do the following:

    This means to me that this is primarily a Windows issue, and that the DBA needs to work with the Windows admin to implement an IPSec policy or setup a secure tunnel. Here’s one link I found, but not being a strong Windows admin, I’m not sure if it’s the best one. The idea would be that you would want to secure the network traffic to prevent a third party from copying the log backup somehow.

    Is it a big deal? I’m not sure about that. I think this is an item that auditors might be concerned about more than it is a security risk. After all, even if a hacker acquired an old full backup and a log backup, they wouldn’t necessarily be able to restore the log backup since the LSNs would be out of order. And while a log backup might contain sensitive information, an attacker couldn’t guarantee that any particular log backup would have sensitive information. Only if that information were edited would it be included in a log backup.

    The big security downside is that whatever channel or method you use here would likely be the same one used for initialize things and include a full backup somewhere. So it’s a good idea to provide tight security, and not just set up shares that Everyone can access.

  • Netbook – Finding a GB

    I turned on my netbook for the first time in a few weeks recently. My laptop had died, and I wanted to get some work done upstairs. Plus with my files now on only one machine, I wanted to get things sync’d up on the netbook so I’d have two copies. Things sync’d up and I got some work done.

    However the next day when I turned it back on, I had the “disk space low” message on it. With 500GB-1TB drives coming in many machines, I haven’t seen this message in a long time. I checked and sure enough my 16GB SSD had 127MB free. Yikes!

    I immediately started looking for things to delete. I suspected that my Live Mesh folders were the culprit since I hadn’t installed anything on the machine. After cleaning out temporary internet files I then found about 800MB of blog entries, mostly due to image and video files, that were eating up space. I removed those, thinking I could pull that stuff back down in a backup from Google if I needed it.

    With 1.5GB free, things were running better, but not great. 16GB works for the netbook alone, but I think I might need to carry around a little more space over time in a USB drive just in case.