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Deploying Oracle data on the web
Oracle Tips by Burleson Consulting |
Now that mainstream
American business is internet-enabled, midcaps and small
businesses are exploring methods for deploying their data over
the web. For a typical example, retail companies are driven to
give their customers real-time access to order and shipping
information, but they don't want to hook-up their server to the
internet. Why take the risk?
What tools for deploying
Oracle data?
There are many ways to
get Oracle data on the web, just to name a few:
There are also
third-party tools that deploy Oracle data over the web:
Safety First
With all these
choices, what's a company to do? The answer is always
"safety first", use a solution that will not expose your central
server to attack. Such a solution would have a remote
webserver running Oracle XE, totally disconnected from the main
database. Your production database simply streams updates
to a known-internet port for the XE database, with no backward
connections possible.
No storm in the port
Hackers are persistent
and an FBI field agent once told me that a determined hacker can
crack and system, given enough time.
All they need is an
internet port. Any server that has an internet port is a
target for hackers, and the only safe solution is an
asynchronous data deployment method to a remote server,
completely disconnected from the mission-critical computing
environment. Oracle has graciously provided the
license-free Oracle XE database, which has APEX and makes the
ideal environment for web-enabling Oracle data (Note that Oracle
XE has limits, and you must have a database < 4 gig and only run
one CPU).
Many
companies are taking baby steps into the internet by deploying
customer information periodically, leaving the remote Oracle
database (the one that's connected to the Internet), read-only
except when it's being refreshed.
One ideal solution is to use Oracle
replication (snapshots or Oracle Streams). With Oracle
replication, your secure server only opens it's port for a very
brief period of time as it blasts any table changes to the
internet copy of Oracle. The internet server has a process
listening for refreshes, but the remote Oracle cannot connect
back to the sending database. If a bad guy hacks into the
internet Oracle system, there is nothing that points back to
your mission-critical environment.
| I have
implemented this for many clients, and BC provides
complete support consulting for deploying your Oracle
data. Just call if you want help. |
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