Database Underground | Sean McCown | November 2007

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November 2007

November 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)

OK, somebody's going to have to help me here. Apparently I don't even know what a crime is anymore.

I just read an article on a SQL Server Magazine blog about this whole Idera lawsuit business. You can read it here. In there is an inberview with Rick Pleczko where he said: "This is a civil case, not a criminal case, and neither Quest [nor anyone else] has accused us of criminal behavior. Any information to the contrary is completely false."

OK, I get that... you need to defend yourself, but come on. At the top of that very same blog you'll notice that it says there are allegations of Idera violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Ummm... I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty criminal to me. How do they figure that it isn't? If you look up the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act on Wikipedia it shows you the prison time associated with violations of this act. Funny, I didn't know they handed out prison sentences for civil matters.

Now, just because nobody's filed criminal charges doesn't mean that what they're being accused of isn't criminal. Look up the act online anywhere and I don't think you'll find any sites that call it a civil affair. It's what the government uses to put hackers in prison.

So nice try, but I'm not biting. Again, just because the charges haven't been filed doesn't mean it's not criminal.

Posted by Sean McCown on November 30, 2007 04:45 PM

November 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Idera's Criminal Activity

WOW, this is big. I just found an article about a lawsuit filed by Quest Software against Idera where they allege patent infringement as well as criminal hacking and property theft. The article is on Technology Law 360.

Man, this is just big.

Ok, according to the story, Quest is saying that Idera has not only been copying their software to the point that they're infringing their patents, but they've actually illegally hacked into Quest's computers and stole secret product information.

This isn't me talking, this is the article about the lawsuit.
Personally, I think Rick Pleczko had better be careful or he and many others at Idera could be facing jail time on this hacking business. That's a serious offense.

Anyway, if you want to see it for yourself, you can view the article here. You'll have to join, but the trial membership is free and you'll be able to see the article right away. It's pretty interesting.

I'll keep you posted as I find things out, but unless something major happens, this could be the end of Idera.

Happy reading!

Posted by Sean McCown on November 27, 2007 08:53 AM

November 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)

The new Katmai Experience

I downloaded the new Katmai CTP today and ran an upgrade on my workstation. Unfortunately it didn't go quite as planned. In fact, I'd have to say I'm actually a little disappointed.

First, many parts of the upgrade failed. I can take most of them, but the engine upgrade failed and for such a simple scenario, it really shouldn't have. I haven't looked at the log yet so I don't know why it failed, but the point is it just did.

I was installing it mainly for the tools anyway. However, the new SSMS also has its problems. Even though I upgraded, it kept the old Yukon version in tact, which is just fine with me. The problem came though when I wanted to import my servers. See, I have to import them because it's not smart enough to do it on its own. So I exported my server list from SSMS Yukon, and imported them into Katmai. Of course, it failed. I tried a couple different times with a couple different configurations, and it still keeps failing.

Now, it does an excellent job with the multi-server querying, which is why I wanted to install it to begin with. But I'm not looking forward to having to create my dozens of servers by hand in the new tool. Isn't this something that should be worked out by now?

Anyway, more to come the more I play with it.

Posted by Sean McCown on November 26, 2007 04:34 PM

November 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)

The Penguin Mothership

This week I visited Oracle headquarters for the first time. I've been writing pieces on Oracle for about 4-5yrs now and I've finally earned enough credits to be called in.

Now what can I say about Oracle campus except it's nothing short of cool. It's probably one of the nicest tech campuses I've visited. It houses a rather large pond that I'm told used to be home to a few dolphins. That aside though, the campus is very clean and stylish.

There were penguin crossing signs on the roads and big marble torn pages marking building numbers. The grass was well-behaved with plenty of bamboo to go around. What can I say? It was nice.

Being a SQL Server guy I will admit that it was a little strange being on the other side. I kinda felt like Captain Picard aboard the Borg ship. I was surprised to find that everyone was incredibly friendly and to my surprise, they all seemed happy... almost like normal people. They were speaking English too. I don't know why I expected everyone to be speaking some kind of command-line language I don't understand with tubes and wires coming out of them, but it was a pleasant surprise to find they've learnd how to talk just like you amd me. They were all so life-like.

And when lunchtime rolled around we went down to the cafeteria, which is very nice. It reminds me of the cafeterias at many other companies where it's almost like a food court in the mall... except this one was actually clean. And it had style. For instance, they had this water spout for you to get your drinking water out of that had those old style small tiles all around it. The spout itself was very small too. Definitely like something I've seen in the older parts of Italy. But this one combines fashion and function. It's got a reader under the bowl that detects when you walk in front of it and it gives you water. No need for any clumsy valves when you've got a food tray in your hands.

One more twist on the cafeteria that I really loved. They had this table setup between 2 food stations that had tons of veggies and fruits on it. At first I thought it was just a delivery that had been left there, but it was all laid out. I asked my cute Aussie escort (not her name or title) what was going on, and she said that they have an organic farmer come in and sell his produce. Man, I'm tellin' ya... being a former french chef that's right up my alley. I couldn't imagine being able to pick up my veggies for the night based off of what looks good at the time. Seriously, that's just cool.

OK, now on to business. I'm actually installing Oracle 11g as I'm writing this and I think I said it in my 10g review, and it holds true even more now; Oracle is actually lapping MS in ease of install. Installing 11g is so easy I could let my mother do it and not have to worry about it coming out ok. And for a change they've put some time in on the graphics and come up with a very nice color scheme.

Katmai is coming out soon and all I've got to say is watch out MS, Oracle's gunning for your title.

Posted by Sean McCown on November 8, 2007 05:29 PM

November 01, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus

Ok, let's get into it again. I'm just trying to do something simple and I'm hitting roadblocks at every turn.

The task is simple: Script out these databases on server1 and create the empty schemas on server2.

I also want to save the scripts so I can do it again and again during my dev cycle. I want to have an identical schema so I can just test my change scripts to make sure they'll run before I put them against my cert environment. Anyway...

OK, so the obvious choice for this task is VSTE for DBAs. It has a schema compare doodad and since I already dumped all the objects in the target DBs, it'll be easy because all the actions will be create.

So I ran the compare and things went just as planned. Then I tried to send it to the query window. Guess what... the script is too big and VS refuses to display it. so it tells me to save it to a file. Ok, I save it to a file and import it into SSMS, which loads it with no problem. However, the script is too big and SSMS refuses to run it. Nice. Now the fun begins.

I then get the idea to split up the script into object scripts... Tables/views, SPs, etc. So I get my first script split up into sections and run it. And of course it fails because even though I have 'include dependencies' checked in VSTE, it's not scripting my views in order. I've got views calling views that haven't been created yet. Now I'm back to SSMS which is crawling. I've got 5500 views to script, and it's been going to an hour and it's only now hitting 1,000.

It would be nice if the MS tools could keep up with the times. Does nobody have big projects in the MS world? I guess they're telling us that if you have a small to mid-size app you're good to go, but otherwise you have to just do the best you can.

Needless to say I'm very discouraged. Once again, my MS tools have taken a relatively simple chore and turned it into an ordeal.

And btw:
Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.
Translation: The mountains will be in labor, and a ridiculous mouse will be brought forth.
- Horace (Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (c. 18 BC))

Posted by Sean McCown on November 1, 2007 08:34 AM

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