October 16, 2007
Pyxis Engineering has an outstanding group of Oracle Certified Professionals that understand how to tune Oracle Databases. Michael Capell, Principal Engineer, recently authored a whitepaper on Oracle's audit capabilities and how to use them most efficiently. Pyxis Engineering professionals are now applying this technique to tune database systems on multiple projects.
Ever wonder what happens to the audit data that applications are mandated to collect? Besides slowing down transactions due to the overhead of collection as well as filling up all available storage, what happens to it? In most cases, the data just sits there in a database, a flat file, or a tape backup and is ignored. When a security breach mandates a review, too much data has been accumulated to realistically locate anything of importance. It's like finding a needle in a haystack.
Pyxis Engineering has devised a solution to this problem. Starting with how to configure one's database to take advantage of Oracle's inherent auditing capabilities, Pyxis details what should be audited and then, most importantly, how to manage, review, and use all of the audit data collected.