Seasons Greetings

Is a smartphone really a smart choice?

I recently ordered a free smart phone with a very cheap subscription (sounds really Dutch). Is it a smart choice? I can not afford an iPhone subscription or other more expensive subscription, but after a few seconds after turning on my smart phone some other person was already making menu choices for me! Looks funny when someone goes through the menu of my phone without me touching any part of the touch screen. Looks like it is already hacked. It is Phone of the year in my country (what were the criteria, certainly not security).

Is there a really secure smart phone then? NO!

Do you value your privacy? Then here is a sad small article from InSecure Magazine. Insecure phones top 10.

The most vulnerable smartphones

Bit9 highlighted the most vulnerable popular

smartphones in use today. The devices on the

list pose the most serious security and privacy

risk to consumers and corporations.

Fifty six percent of Android phones in the

marketplace today are running out-of-date and

insecure versions of the Android operating

system software. The study found that

smartphone manufacturers such as Samsung,

HTC, Motorola and LG often launch new

phones with outdated software out of the box,

and they are slow to upgrade these phones to

the latest and most secure versions of

Android. In some cases, the phones are not

updated at all, as the manufacturers shift their

focus to newer models, leaving existing

customers stranded with insecure software.

Here is a picture with some of the common

Bugs on Mobile Apps.

The “Dirty Dozen” list includes:

1. Samsung Galaxy Mini

2. HTC Desire

3. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

4. Sanyo Zio

5. HTC Wildfire

6. Samsung Epic 4G

7. LG Optimus S

8. Samsung Galaxy S

9. Motorola Droid X

10. LG Optimus One

11. Motorola Droid 2

12. HTC Evo 4G

Which linux is good for you? A small history of Novell and RedHat with IBM!

Linux on the System z: Which Linux is Right for You?

A profile of Linux distribution partners.

April 2006 | by Ed Gauthier

In early 2000, customers became aware that Linux* was able to run on IBM* mainframe computers. With their reliability, security, and scalability, coupled with their suite of virtualization features and functions, customers saw mainframes as an ideal place to run multiple Linux servers to make more efficient use of their computing resource.

Customers began experimenting with early adopter, no charge versions of the operating system that were available from Marist College in Poughkeepsie N.Y. However, when customers wanted to use Linux on their mainframes to support business applications, they started looking for commercial distributions, backed by quality vendors to entrust with their mission critical workloads.

IBM System z* is fortunate to have the support of two premier Linux distributors. Novell* SuSE and Red Hat* offer System z customerscustomers quality engineering, a variety of support options, and timely updates to their versions of Linux to help customers get the most out of their mainframes while supporting Linux applications.

Which brings us to the question that most customers ask when they are planning to use Linux on a mainframe to host a business application: "Which one is right for me?"." With that in mind, IBM Systems Magazine, Mainframe Edition, approached IBM distribution partners Novell SuSE and Red Hat and asked them to prepare a short description of their companies, their commitment to Linux on mainframes, features, and anything else they thought IBM customers would like to know to make their decision easier. We were pleased to get responses from both. We'll begin with a few words about Red Hat from Mark Spencer - a Red Hat solutions architect - and we'll move on to Ray Lazarine - product marketing manager for NovellSuSE.

Mark Spencer on Red Hat

Red Hat has long been a player on IBMon IBM mainframe platforms. Since the turn of the Milenium, Red Hat has been committed to providing a stable open source platform on the mainframe. From the S/390* platform, and continuing on to today's System z architecture, Red Hat has continued to provide a platform for the delivery of mission-critical applications. This is manifest in Red Hat's commitment to a unified code-base, a cornerstone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux stability and predictability. This means that Red Hat uses the same source code to deliver Red Hat Enterprise Linux on a System z9* as it does on an X86 or X86_64 platform.

Red Hat is dedicated to delivering a predictable Linux platform for mission-critical application deployment. Through it's partnership with IBM, as well as the ISV community, Red Hat has become identified with Linux. This partnership provides a proven Linux computing environment clients have come to expect from IBM and Red Hat.

By utilizing the same Linux operating system as used in the distributed computing environment, clients can further lower their total cost of ownership (TCO) by taking advantage of the fact that they only need to train systems administrators on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, rather than multiple operating systems. This focus on a single operating systems allows clients to develop highly-skilled systems administrators who are capable of running Red Hat Enterprise Linux on whichever platform their business requires.

In addition to its hardware commitment, Red Hat delivers a full solution stack to System z platforms, including software that allows for the virtualization of storage. Red Hat's Global File System (GFS) allows multiple nodes to share a single file-system, in with both read and write capabilities. This allows for the deployment of clustered database-based applications, as well as enabling the clustering of other services such as NFS.

Not long ago - and even continuing today - the big buzz-term in our industry was was "open source." Conventional wisdom stated that, as a consultant, you asked your clients not if they were using open source software in their environment, but where. Today, clients are asking about virtualization. They are keenly aware of virtualized servers and are starting to become more aware of the possibilities of virtualized storage as well. They strive to maximize their technology investments while lowering their computational costs.

Many Red Hat customers are examining ways to continue to scale their environments. Again, conventional wisdom drives them to take advantage of grid computing methodology. This is the so-called "scale-out" or "distributed" model. In such a model, the reasoning goes, if you need more computational horse-power, you simply add more nodes to your grid. The obvious rebuttal to this methodology is that each additional node requires incrementally more power and cooling, as well as adding to the administrative overhead. These three items contribute directly to a rise in the TCO of the solution, while keeping the return on investment (ROI) constant.

The opposing methodology of "scale-out" is "scale-up" where, by adding more workloads to existing computational resources, clients can raise the ROI of their computing investments. The more work a single node can accomplish with the same power, cooling and administrative overhead, the TCO lowers, but the ROI rises. However, many clients have valid concerns about "having all of their eggs in one basket".

Fortunately, IBM and Red Hat have the a solution which will allow clients to take advantage of both "scale up" and "scale out" methodologies, with the combined effect of lowering the client's TCO, while raising their ROI.

Taking advantage of IBM's built-in virtualization technology, z/VM on IBM's System z architecture allows clients to not only "scale out", implementing many virtual nodes within the z/VM* environment, but it allows them to "scale up", driving up the utilization rates of their existing hardware investment. This has the net combined effect of lowering the TCO of the solution, all-the-while increasing ROI.

A good example leveraging mainframe virtualization strength is the use of IBM's HiperSockets that allows that allows fast communications between the virtualized nodes, without having to change the guest kernel at all. This allows for the creation of solutions with massive throughput, allowing for the creation of highly-scalable deployments of enterprise applications.

Ray Lazarine on Novell

Novell, Inc., founded in 1983, is a provider of infrastructure software and services to over 50,000 customers in 43 countries. With more than 20 years of experience in data center, workgroup and desktop solutions, the 6,000 Novell employees, 5,000 partners and support centers around the world are meeting customer requirements for identity-driven computing and Linux solutions. By providing enterprise-class software and support for commercial and open source software, Novell delivers increased operating flexibility and choice at a lower total cost of ownership.

Novell entered the Linux market through its acquisition of Ximian (Linux desktop software vendor) in 2003, and SUSE* Linux, one of the leading enterprise Linux companies, in January of 2004, and ultimately bringing SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to the market.

Novell began shipping SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 in August of 2004. Since then, we've been hearing from our customers and partners that SUSE Linux is a strong foundation for open source computing in the enterprise.

Some of the key features of SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 include:

·       Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance 4+ certification, the highest security certification level available today

·       SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 also Enablingenables you customers to deploy mission-critical applications by including scalability, reliability, performance, and clustering services

·       All Complete supported on of IBM's System z9 platforms

·       Our Linux platform also includes Rrobust platform support for Linux applications delivered by third party ISVs

Novell and IBM have been working together for years on enabling the IBM mainframe IBM mainframe platform to run Linux. Our partnership has resulted in a growing acceptance of SUSE Linux as a primary operating system of choice for mainframe customers. In fact, customers are now able to deploy SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on IBM's zSeries System z platform, to leverage capabilities in the areas of:

·       Business Resilliency, including high availability, disaster recovery, serviceability, reliability, Hiperswap, XRC and PPRC

·       Security, including privacy, regulatory requirements, identity management, zSeries* hardware quality of services, ethical hacking by research, HiperSockets and, as mentioned, Common Criteria Certification

Novell and IBM are now working together to support the launch of Novell's next release of the SUSE Linux platform, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, scheduled for availability in the second quarter of 2006. Planning is now under way between Novell and the IBM zSeries System z team to execute joint marketing campaigns that will drive further adoption of SUSE Linux and the zSeries platform in the datacenter.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 is a secure, reliable and flexible server operating system for enterprise computing. Backed by Novell with a seven-year lifecycle guarantee, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 offers improved performance and scalability, comprehensive open source functionality, enhanced virtualization capabilities and support for a broad range of software applications and hardware platforms, including IBM's System z.

The SUSE Linux Enterprise Server platform is created using a Novell development and testing methodology - Autobuild - which ensures that all Linux software code that Novell releases meeting meets strict technical standards for reliability and integrity. Using AutoBuild, Novell is able to create and deliver important software updates in hours, rather than days or weeks. AutoBuild also allows Novell to create SUSE Linux Enterprise for multiple platforms simultaneously. As a result, you can create a more efficient IT infrastructure because you will run the same Linux operating system on your mainframes, grids, clusters, workstations and desktop systems.

Novell's AutoBuild methodology ensures that you can deploy SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 on all of the most important hardware architectures used in business with confidence, including the System z platform from IBM.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 also provides open application programming interfaces (APIs) and other development tools that simplify Linux integration and customization. As a result, businesses can lower operational costs across servers, increase computing utilization, and protect corporate data.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 helps enterprises reduce cost, improve system performance and increase flexibility through a combination of software and services designed for today's mainframe requirements in the data center. It also provides an open foundation for a variety of server workloads, including enterprise database deployment, line of business applications, and mission-critical software applications.

With SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and IBM System z9, customers can build the data center of the future - today.

For Additional Information

Novell and Red Hat are IBM's Strategic Alliance Partners for Linux and - in collaboration with IBM developers and our Linux Technology Center - have each earned the respect of

IBM customers and have established themselves as leaders in delivering commercial Linux distributions. For further information about Red Hat Linux, visit www.redhat.com, and for

more information about Novell SUSE Linux, visit www.novell.com.

IBM Systems Magazine is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. The editorial content of IBM Systems Magazine is placed on this website by MSP TechMedia under license from International Business Machines Corporation.

©2011 MSP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

My external RAC memory

RAC Cheat sheet

This is a quick and dirty cheat sheet on Oracle RAC 10g, as my experience with RAC grows I will update this section, below is a beginners guide on the commands and information that you will require to administer Oracle RAC.

Acronyms

Files and Directories

Useful Views/Tables

Useful Parameters

Processes

General Administration

CRS Administration

Voting Disk

End of the year approaching, let use help you modernize you IT Infrastructure!

It will help you save lots of money and runs your Applications much more efficient!

Website: http://www.dbaconsulting.nl

Contact: info@dbaconsulting.nl

IBM System p

IBM System p for Oracle Data Warehousing

Main Advantages

■ Reduces the complexity and risk of Oracle Data Warehousing deployments

■ Incorporates IBM System p™ and System Storage™ solution options into IBM and Oracle Data Warehousing reference configurations developed collaboratively as part of the Oracle Information Appliance Initiative

■ Offers a family of validated and tuned pre-sized configuration building blocks to support a range of raw data, user and query workload requirements

■ Provides repeatable, balanced building blocks to scale-out the data warehouse

■ Seamlessly incorporates Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) and application loads into the data warehouse

IBM System p

A reliable, scalable, resilient server infrastructure is critical for application deployments that rely on an Oracle database. IBM System p technology is a smart choice for UNIX® and Linux® operating system-based Oracle database deployments and for businesses that demand powerful, flexible, reliable and secure computing solutions. An extensive system family from 1- to 64-corescalability is competitively priced with64-bit IBM POWER5™, POWER5+™, and POWER6™ technology designed to lower software, energy and space costs through leadership performance and unique IBM capabilities that can enable a dramatic increase in individual system utilization. A choice of more than 10,000 IBM AIX® and Linux applications supports a broad array of business requirements. And models can be selected for specific workloads, from front-end business intelligence (BI) applications to back-end data warehouse (DW) infrastructure.

System p technology leadership

IBM System p models are based on advanced IBM POWER™ Dual- Core chip technology and deliver outstanding price/performance, mainframe-inspired reliability features and innovative virtualization capabilities. Add to that IBM’s unique simultaneous-multithreading technology allowing two application threads to be run at the same time, and it’s easy to see why the IBM System p server delivers outstanding performance.

System p virtualization

System p virtualization technology can dramatically increase server utilization allowing workloads to be easily consolidated and enabling you to do more than ever before with a single server. Available as an option on all System p models, Advanced POWER Virtualization allows you to run multiple applications on AIX and Linux operating systems at the same time in separate, secure partitions using as little as one-tenth of a processor — allowing a reduction in the number of servers and peripheral devices needed. And the System p Capacity on Demand function available on selected models is designed to scaleup and scale-down processing power and memory as business needs fluctuate with no disruption to your business.

IBM System Storage

Disk storage is a critical element in an Oracle Data Warehousing environment. Multiple solution options are available including:

• IBM System Storage DS8000™ family - designed to deliver robust, flexible, highly available, and cost-effective disk storage to support continuous operations for mission-critical workloads

• IBM System Storage DS4000™ family - scalable, modular Fibre Channel disk storage designed with growth, reliability, and availability in mind, from entry-level to enterprise environments and performance oriented to capacity-oriented applications

For more information regarding IBM System Storage product compatibility with the Oracle database please visit:

IBM storage Oracle compatibility

IBM and the Oracle Information

Appliance Initiative

IBM has developed data warehouse reference configurations, called Information Appliance Foundations, as part of the Oracle Information Appliance Initiative. These foundations combine Oracle Data Warehousing components with IBM System p and System Storage products. These Oracle Information Appliance Foundations provide validated, balanced configurations for data warehouses that combine system resources such as hardware, storage, I/O and networking into data warehouse building blocks that can be combined to address different scalability needs in a linear fashion. They’re designed to support varying loads based on varying raw data size, concurrent user load and varying query complexity.

The development and use of repeatable building blocks allows high-performance data warehouses to scale through the use of a modular design approach to the data warehouse, ETL functionality, business intelligence tools and applications. The modular building blocks are designed to deploy into existing client business intelligence and OLTP (On Line Transaction Processing) infrastructures. For more information about the Oracle Information Appliance Initiative please visit:

Oracle Information Appliance Initiative

Business intelligence reference architecture for Oracle on IBM Systems.

Figure 1 outlines the IBM reference architecture for the deployment of Oracle business intelligence components on IBM Systems and IBM System Storage products. The architecture is a high-level system design. It is free of implementation details and provides a high level description of the solution components.

The key elements of the reference architecture are the:

• Software Architecture Components – these define the overall structure and relationships among the key functional elements of the data warehouse, the infrastructure software and BI server repository

• Systems Architecture - this defines a proven approach for insuring that a balanced set of system resources are in place to deliver expected performance based on the primary drivers of data warehouse performance – including computer power, network bandwidth and storage capacity and bandwidth

The software architecture is made up of three primary components or groups. The first group is made up of those components that comprise the data warehouse. These include the relational database (Oracle’s latest Enterprise Edition release with Oracle Partitioning), storage management (Oracle Advanced Storage Management product for logical volume management of the database objects) and ETL functionality (Oracle Warehouse Builder). For existing deployments the architecture is flexible enough to allow third party ETL products such as IBM Ascential, Informatica, SAS or Business Objects to be used as the ETL driving mechanism.

The second group within the software architecture comprises the infrastructure including administration and management (Oracle Enterprise Manager), cluster control (Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC)) as well as hardware (IBM System p) and storage (IBM System Storage).

The third software architecture group consists of the BI server repository (Oracle BI Enterprise Edition) and the individual applications that the client uses to access the data warehouse. These applications can be specific Oracle applications or third party tools from other vendors such as SAS, Business Objects, Cognos or Microstrategy.

The systems architecture that IBM has developed which supports the Oracle Information Appliance Foundation and the IBM business intelligence reference architecture for Oracle on IBM Systems will be described in the next section.

Functional components of the business intelligence reference architecture for Oracle on IBM Systems

The logical flow of data from the data source to delivery can be defined as a series of processes that accommodate data integration, data warehousing and data analytics. Each of these areas exhibit different workload and resource characteristics. These characteristics can be defined and resource requirements articulated through best practices and workload sizing and capacity planning methodologies.

Figure 2 outlines these different areas and defines the approach of repeatable building blocks (called Oracle nodes) for ETL, data warehousing and analytics applications. These building blocks or nodes relate back to the reference architecture and comprise the systems architecture described earlier. The use of nodes in this fashion allows the client to integrate existing ETL and application deployments into the data warehouse using appropriate sizing techniques. Each of the nodes are designed using IBM System p and System Storage hardware with associated interconnect technology to scale in an Oracle RAC-managed environment. The nodes provide flexibility allowing a deployment to start in an SMP environment and then to scale-out in an Oracle RAC deployment as the data warehouse grows. Each functional node (Figure 3) is sized based on workload characteristics in terms of I/O bandwidth, memory requirement and CPU utilization. The holistic design is that data integration nodes are balanced not only across the internal resources available but also balanced in terms of performance with the other nodes in the entire business intelligence solution. The Oracle data warehouse node is designed to provide balanced, scalable performance of the data warehouse as multiple nodes are connected together into a RAC-enabled data warehouse deployment.

The individual nodes are the core components of the Oracle Information Appliance Foundation (Figure 4). The business intelligence solution is deployed based on a detailed sizing exercise which defines the number of Oracle data integration nodes, Oracle data warehouse nodes and Oracle analytics nodes that are required. The deployment uses the infrastructure components outlined in the reference architecture based on IBM System p, System Storage, Oracle RAC, Oracle Partitioning and Enterprise Manager.

Sizing functional building blocks How to size Oracle Business Intelligence and Oracle Data Warehousing solutions

IBM offers a process for sizing future hardware requirements when a client is looking to run Oracle Business Intelligence and data warehouse solutions on IBM hardware. This process is based on performance data and other information gathered from the client’s existing environment. This input is used to estimate the resources required to support one or more of the following scenarios:

• New Oracle BI or DW installations

• Additional applications for an existing Oracle BI or DW production environment

• Migrations to new IBM hardware platforms, such as System p or System x™ servers

In order to start the sizing estimate process, follow the instructions on the cover page of the Oracle Database sizing questionnaire. The questionnaire provides information on what needs to be completed and where to send the completed document for processing. Please work with your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner (DBA Consulting) in order to obtain a sizing estimate. To access the Oracle database sizing questionnaire please visit:

Oracle Database sizing questionnaire

Once there, select the Oracle Database sizing questionnaire from the list of supported applicationsystems. On the same web page just mentioned you can access the Oracle Business Intelligence quick sizer from the same list. This is a simplified tool that provides general sizing guidelines on possible IBM hardware configurations when running Oracle BI. It does not replace the standard IBM sizing process but can be an excellent complement or starting point for the sizing estimate.

The Oracle BI quick sizer is a tool developed by IBM and Oracle. It is used as an initial sizing reference with clients who wish to build a new, or extend an existing Oracle Database data warehouse. The BI quick sizer is designed to provide a reference point for discussion around the deployment of Oracle Database 10g and, where appropriate Oracle RAC on IBM System p or IBM System x server technology. The Oracle BI quick sizer provides a discussion structure whereby the client can consider a number of factors:

• Comparisons of growth scenarios around scale-out or scale-up strategies

• Comparisons between System x with Linux and System p with AIX solutions.

• Comparisons of servers for different query workloads

• Storage configurations based on amount of usable disk and Host Bus Adapters (HBAs aka Fiber Channel adapters)

In addition to sizing methodologies for Oracle Data Warehousing, ETL and business intelligence applications, IBM has sizing methods and practices for many of the third party tools that can be seen in a complex heterogeneous business intelligence deployment including SAS, Business Objects, Cognos and Microstrategy. These sizing practices and methods are used to design the analytics nodes as part of the complete deployment. The availability of all these sizing paths provides a comprehensive sizing solution for the client sizing needs in this market segment.

Oracle data warehouse node for IBM System p and System Storage

As noted, the Oracle data warehouse node is the core component in constructing a scalable data warehouse which is the underlying driver of the business intelligence solution. Table 1 identifies the infrastructure elements of an Oracle data warehouse node that can be found in the Oracle BI quick sizer. The node provides 5TB of raw data warehouse space providing the flexibility for a moderate deployment to grow in a scale up fashion to 5TB before then scaling outwards in an Oracle RAC deployment for data warehouses greater than 5TB. The node is designed to provide balanced memory, I/O and processing power to efficiently execute application queries. The node is designed to service between 15 and 90 concurrent users depending on the complexity of the user queries.

Summary

One of the major areas of concern for business is the effort involved in architecting, developing and deploying complex data warehouses and the associated components of the business intelligence solution around ETL and analytic applications. IBM and Oracle have developed a powerful architectural model and approach to simplifying the deployment and reducing the risk of data warehouses based on the IBM System p for Oracle Data Warehousing. This solution fully supports the Oracle Information Appliance Initiative and provides a family of optimized and validated presized configuration building blocks for data warehouses to support a range of raw data, user and query workload requirements.

For more information

To explore other System p and Oracle Data Warehousing solutions or to find out more about other joint solutions from IBM and Oracle, please contact an IBM sales representative at 1 866 426-9989, or visit us at:

http://ibm.com/solutions/oracle

For more information about the IBM System p please visit:

http://ibm.com/systems/p

For more information about IBM System Storage please visit:

http://ibm.com/storage

Or contact IBM Partner: DBA Consulting

Email: info@dbaconsulting.nl

Website : http://www.dbaconsulting.nl

Blog: http://drsalbertspijkers.blogspot.com/