databases

IBM said Monday that it has acquired database security firm Guardium.

Guardium is a leading vendor in monitoring and protecting databases for large enterprises. In addition to securing the data and watching database activity, Guardium's technology can automate certain tasks to assist businesses with regulatory compliance, said IBM. Big Blue expects the acquisition to help its customers better shield their critical databases against both external and internal threats.

Guardium can check for specific patterns and anomalies when information is accessed, said IBM, allowing enterprises to maintain the integrity of their data. Guardium's technology can also detect fraud and … Read more

The European Commission must be feeling a bit silly right about now. Despite insisting that Oracle has not responded to its requests for comment and concessions in its planned acquisition of Sun Microsystems (and the open-source database MySQL), Amazon.com recently offered the EC all the proof it needs that MySQL competition remains alive and well.

For those who missed it, Amazon announced last week a fork of the popular MySQL database, called RDS (Relational Database Service). RDS is essentially a hosted version of MySQL, one that developers can write to at the minuscule cost of pennies per hour.

Oracle … Read more

IN-HEH Timeline offers to help organize a family tree by creating a time line of people and events. While its aim is not uncommon, its confusing setup and total lack of direction stall this program before it ever begins.

The program's interface was our first clue that things would be difficult. Dissected into separate stark white boxes with many commands that don't make sense, it mandated a retreat to the Help file. Unfortunately, there was no Help file, just technical product information. We soldiered on, experimenting with the program in hopes of creating a timeline. The program allowed … Read more

The European Commission may be taking its time analyzing the competitive impact of Oracle's proposed acquisition of Sun/MySQL, but the industry can't afford to dither. On Tuesday, MySQL competitor EnterpriseDB announced that Red Hat joined its $19 million Series C funding round, which follows IBM's own investment in EnterpriseDB.

Is the software industry, once devoted to MySQL, preparing to shift allegiances to Postgres?

Probably not, but clouds are forming. On Monday, I talked with EnterpriseDB CEO Ed Boyajian, a former Red Hat executive, and he suggested several reasons for Red Hat's investment of "a … Read more

Expanding its cloud-computing storage services to a higher level, Amazon.com unveiled a new option called Amazon RDS for companies that want to store information in a database on the other side of the Internet.

The suite of Amazon Web Services (AWS) already included a database option called SimpleDB, a basic database with its own interface standard for storing data and retrieving it. The Amazon Relational Database Service, in contrast, uses a more standard database interface, embodied in this case in an online implementation of the open-source MySQL software, the company said Monday.

"With Amazon RDS, you get full … Read more

Blitz Document is a useful tool with built-in templates for creating office forms. The templates help you quickly design and generate common and specialized business documents for a variety of purposes, including invoices, sales agreements, letters, and memos. There are "Sales Related Documents" like Invoices, Bills of Sale, and Sales Agreements. Businesses can use the templates as-is, but they're easily edited and customized for different needs.

Under the Common Forms tab in the Template menu, you'll find templates for frequently used office type purposes: faxes, letters, meeting agendas, and more. We really liked Blitz Document's … Read more

BookCAT provides all the tools necessary to track books for a professional or a home library. Its interesting options give you full control of your catalog and lending.

Although it performed a complicated task, the program's interface is surprisingly accessible. It has plenty to offer seasoned and novice librarians as well as beginning to advanced book collectors. The layout is professional and intuitive with its bright, well-labeled commands. We were instantly pleased with this program, since we were able to quickly populate our entire library by entering only each book's ISBN number. BookCAT instantly downloaded each volume's … Read more

AcronymGenie provides a handy, easy-to-use reference database of those sometimes confusing computer acronyms. This program is a simple tool with simple definitions, and is therefore a success.

We were instantly looking up acronyms, thanks to the program's effective bare-bones interface. The program simply lists all the acronyms it defines in alphabetical order, with very few diversions. While it isn't pretty, it's functional, which felt more valuable to us. It gives you the option to simply scroll through the list of words, which contained hundreds and hundreds of computer, Internet, and basic digital and technological acronyms. From the … Read more

PALO ALTO, Calif.-- Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg admitted in a talk here on Thursday evening that the company's response to a database outage that knocked out approximately 150,000 user accounts was "too slow."

"It's a very small percentage of our users, but it's a lot of people," Sandberg said of the affected users. "We want them to be able to (access Facebook) every day. We resolved it in about a week and a half. I think that was too slow."

Numerous Facebook users began complaining early this month … Read more