SOA buy for Oracle

Oracle is to buy ClearApp, a maker of software for managing the performance of composite applications in SOA (service-oriented architecture) environments.

ClearApp's software automatically discovers application components and their dependencies at runtime and monitors performance.

ZapThink analyst Jason Bloomberg says ClearApp's technology provides "deep visibility into the components underlying SOA-based composite applications", but the acquisition also raises questions, as it follows related purchases by Oracle of companies like Auptyma and Moniforce, he says.

"Oracle does have quite a bit of experience in assimilating acquired technologies, and they're also known for taking care of the customers that come along as a result, but every such acquisition sets the bar of success higher for them," Bloomberg says.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Author: Chris Kanaracus @ computerworld.co.nz

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Oracle Audit Vault 10.2.3 Released!

With this latest release, Oracle Audit Vault customers can now also monitor Microsoft SQL Server databases. Oracle has announced the general availability of Oracle Audit Vault Release 10.2.3. This latest release of Oracle Audit Vault now collects audit data from Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and 2005, in addition to Oracle Databases, addressing the lack of a Microsoft solution for enterprise database auditing and activity monitoring.

"Oracle Audit Vault 10.2.3 allows organisations to turn database audit data into mission-critical business intelligence for enabling enterprise security and regulatory compliance," said Vipin Samar, vice president, database security, Oracle.

With Oracle Audit Vault, audit data is automatically consolidated into a secure and centralised repository based on Oracle's data warehousing technology, and analysed in real-time against enterprise-defined policies. Any unauthorised activities can be immediately detected using Oracle Audit Vault's dashboard alerts capabilities.

Oracle Audit Vault also features built-in and customisable reports to address the need for reliable compliance reporting for regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS). This latest release introduces additional pre-built reports, and now captures before-and-after changes to sensitive data to help organisation save time and costs related to compliance reporting, says the company.

Oracle Audit Vault 10.2.3 delivers improved reporting capabilities such as filtering audit data, highlighting rows with condition values, as well as generating charts and graphs. Custom reports can be saved and shared within the enterprise or with external auditors. It also increases privileged user monitoring by auditing Oracle Database Vault.

Oracle Audit Vault 10.2.3 is priced at $57,500 per processor and the Oracle Audit Vault Collection Agent for Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle Databases is available for $3,500 per processor.

Source: www.efytimes.com

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Oracle's Ellison spanked for withholding evidence in shareholder suit

A federal judge has upbraided Oracle CEO Larry Ellison for withholding evidence in a class-action suit brought by company stockholders.

Yesterday, Bloomberg reports, US District Court Judge Susan Illston ruled that Ellison failed to preserve or intentionally destroyed emails and audio recordings that should have been turned over to the suit's plaintiffs. She stopped short of sanctioning the world's fourteenth richest man, but she did say that jurors should assume the missing evidence would have the boosted the stockholders' case.

According to Illston's ruling - provided here (PDF) by the Wall Street Journal - Ellison was obligated to preserve his emails after the suit was filed in March 2001. But in the end, he gave the court only 15 messages.

Ellison and his Oracle co-defendants did produce 1,650 Ellison emails from the files of other company employees. But the judge says this merely muddied the waters.

"It could have been helpful to plaintiffs to demonstrate that certain emails were discovered in Ellison's files," Illston wrote. "Otherwise, for instance, Ellison could argue that he never actually read or received an email that was sent to him, and thus had no knowledge of its contents.

"Moreover, having established with certainty that numerous emails were not produced from Ellison's email files - because the emails were produced from other files or accounts - it is impossible to know whether additional unproduced emails were also deleted or not turned over."

The defendants also requested 135 hours of Ellison interviews recorded by Matthew Symonds, author of the book Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle. But, says the judge's ruling, Symonds asked a computer repair shop to destroy the laptop storing the interviews.

Ellison did hand over some transcripts of the interviews, but none from 2001. With their suit - originally brought by the Nursing Home Pension Fund - shareholders accuse Oracle, Ellison, and other execs of falsifying financial results for the company's 2001 second and third fiscal quarters.

"The court believes it is appropriate to infer that the e-mails and the Softwar-related materials would demonstrate Ellison's knowledge of, among other things, problems with the [Oracle software] Suite 11i, the effects of the economy on Oracle's business and problems with defendant's forecasting models,'" Illston said.

Trial in the case is scheduled for March. Ellison settled a similar shareholder suit in 2005, donating $100m to charities and forking over $22m in attorney fees.

Author: Cade Metz @ www.theregister.co.uk

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