Re: Griping about auditing (not the Oracle Kind)

David,
"This is about what I've come to expect from consultants/contractors" in your mail does not speak very well of
you. Most of the Critical projects that I worked on are/were run by top consultants and good employees.

 So it is too vague and broad to generalize certain job types. If you hired an incompetent consultant, fault
also lies with you in not knowing the stuff that you are hiring ...

Just a thought...
Rama

DBarbour_at_austin.isd.tenet.edu wrote:

> One of the ways around this is to have "Executive Delegation" set up within
> your change management procedures. Generally this boils down to
> recognizing that there are some areas where your "experts" (generally the
> SA and DBA) have more knowledge and need more flexibility than developers,
> contractors and the like.
>
> Interestingly enough, I'm proposing a change management procedure for my
> current employer. This is in response to a contractor who changed the TEMP
> tablespace on three instances to contents permanent late Thursday night.
> Friday, users started having problems with their reports. Here was their
> explanation:
>
> "-- [Contractor] says: [Application]assumes that there is a
> tablespace called "temp".
> We create all of our "temporary" tables there, so that it isn't too
> difficult to clean them out at some point. This is necessary because
> Oracle does not support the "temporary table" concept we use under
> Informix.
> -- So instead of creating temp tables, under Oracle we create
> permanent
> tables in the "temp" tablespace, then remove them when we are done
> (assuming the program does everything correctly and doesn't crash).
> -- They need to add a tablespace called "temp", which should be at
> least
> a few hundred MB (similar to the Informix temp dbspace).
> -- I think you can't specify TEMPORARY when creating the
> tablespace, because Oracle won't allow tables to be created in a
> temporary tablespace. The size they used may not be large enough;
> normally we allocate 500 MB or more (it needs to be big enough to hold
> the largest "temporary" tables that [Application]would ever create).
> Also, they
> should make the "next extent size" large than 256k because they could
> run out of extents -- probably something in the 1-5 MB range would be
> better."
>
> I don't think their company has an Oracle DBA on staff (Yosi - you
> interested?). Global Temporary tables notwithstanding, this is about what
> I've come to expect from consultants/contractors. My change management
> procedure has under it's "Executive Delegation" section, the following
> caveats:
>
> The Executive can delegate authority to appropriately qualified people
> (referred to in this document as the Delegated Authority) to authorize
> a change. The delegation will be documented and will form part of the
> Managed Product List, and will state as a minimum:
>
> · specification of the areas covered by the delegation;
> · the extent of the delegation and any restrictions on the authority;
> · the period for which the delegation applies;
> · that the Delegated Authority has had the appropriate education and
> training to carry out the delegated task;
> · any reporting actions required of the Delegated Authority;
> · any review period for the delegation.
>
> Documented administrative procedures that have been approved as such by
> the Executive can be implemented without individual approvals from the
> Executive as long as each change is implemented according to the
> authorized procedure. However, changes to the administrative
> procedures require reauthorization by the Executive.
>
> David A. Barbour
> Oracle DBA, OCP
> AISD
> 512-414-1002
>
>
> nlzanen1_at_EY.N
> L To: Multiple recipients of list
>ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
> Sent by: cc:
> root_at_fatcity. Subject: Re: Griping about auditing
>(not the Oracle Kind)
> com
>
>
> 06/25/2001
> 10:22 AM
> Please
> respond to
> ORACLE-L
>
>
>
> Hi,
>
> Been there recently
>
> We had change management here breathing down our necks at one point. They
> wanted everything documented and approved. I flooded them with change
> request forms (even for changing a users password on the test database)
> and within two days they wanted a meeting about what we ,DBA's, thought
> should be approved and documented.
>
> We now only have to make sure no other stuff is scheduled by the UNIX boys
> on the same machine if we do something that could conflict with OS stuff.
>
> Jack
>
> PS: The funniest thing is that the reviewers in general have no clue about
> what's going on.
>
> "Miller, Jay"
>
> <JayMiller_at_TDWater To: Multiple recipients of
> list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
> house.com> cc: (bcc: Jack van
> Zanen/nlzanen1/External/MEY/NL)
> Sent by: Subject: Griping about
> auditing (not the Oracle Kind)
> root_at_fatcity.com
>
> 25-06-2001 16:31
>
> Please respond to
>
> ORACLE-L
>
> We've been through an internal audit and I was just wondering if anyone
> else
> has to deal with the rather ludicrous requirements I now have. In order to
> add or resize a datafile I now need to fill out a form and get Senior VP
> approval and the alert logs must be reviewed every day by a non-DBA in
> order
> to be certain that I didn't make any database changes without such
> approval.
> The auditors were horrified to discover that not only did I do such things
> whenever I thought them necessary but that we didn't have a non-DBA review
> everything I did after an Oracle upgrade to ensure I didn't install any
> other software.
> Fortunately I managed to convince them that yes, I really did need a Unix
> login (they were skeptical).
>
> So, any similar horror stories?
>
> Jay Miller
> Sr. Oracle DBA
> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
> --
> Author: Miller, Jay
> INET: JayMiller_at_TDWaterhouse.com
>
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> Author:
> INET: nlzanen1_at_EY.NL
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> Author:
> INET: DBarbour_at_austin.isd.tenet.edu
>
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-- 
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
-- 
Author: Rama Malladi
  INET: rama_at_toyota.com

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