I just saw an article in Boston.com that caught my attention. It’s titled “Internet outages hit India, Middle East” Written by Matthew Rossenberg January 31, 2008.

Here are some highlights from the article:

“NEW DELHI—India's lucrative outsourcing industry struggled Thursday to overcome Internet slowdowns and outages after cuts in two undersea cables sliced the country's bandwidth in half.”

“Such large-scale disruptions are rare but not unknown. East Asia suffered nearly two months of outages and slow service after an earthquake damaged undersea cables near Taiwan in December 2006.”

“The biggest impact to the rest of the world could come from the outages across India, where many U.S. companies outsource customer-service call centers and other back-office operations.”

"The companies that serve the (U.S.) East coast and (Britain) are worst affected. The delay is very bad in some cases," he said. "They have to arrange backup plans or they have to accept the poor quality for the time being until the fiber is restored."

“Big Indian outsourcing companies, such as Infosys and Wipro, said they were still trying to determine what, if any, disruptions to their work had taken place. ….”

I understand why companies are going offshore. English Speaking well educated technology resources at a fraction of the cost. When you do application development and you have an outage, in most cases the impact would be minimal to the business. Unless some critical update needed to be placed into business production code ASAP and you could not.

With a down database/failed database not being able to reach your Database Administrator could put you out of business fast.

My competitors with customer facing talent in the US and back office support in India or someplace else in the world would argue they U.S. team would do all the support. But if you have 100 DBA’s in India and 10 in the U.S. Can they really support their customers adequately when they were at 10% capacity. What if the outage went on for days or weeks.

The two quotes that distrurbed me most were “Such large-scale disruptions are rare but not unknown. East Asia suffered nearly two months of outages…..” Could that small U.S. team really support all the clients for two months.

The other quote that disturbed me “Big Indian outsourcing companies, such as Infosys and Wipro, said they were still trying to determine what, if any, disruptions to their work had taken place. ….”. Talk about the ostrich putting it’s head in the sand. Still trying to determine if any , disruptions to their work had taken place. Give it break. This was a big mess. Admit you have a big problem and you need to figure out a contingency plan to make sure you are able to support your customers if this happens in the future.

My other fear is proprietary information falling in the wrong hands, and the country you out sourced too laws do not provide adequate protection.

As a business owner I keep thinking about the fact I will have access to technical expertise at a fraction of the cost. Which translates into profits. By biggest fear a company trusts me to manage their database environment and it has a failure and we are not there for them. So for now we have decided to remain a 100% U.S. based offering. It’s a business decision we have made that costs us more, but we feel provides us a superior product in the marketplace. Perhaps that’s why we have a 7 year track records of near perfect customer satisfaction.

One thing I know for sure if the majority of my DBA’s were in India I would have had a big problem on my hands and I would know it. I would not have my head in the sand making statements like “Big Indian outsourcing companies, such as Infosys and Wipro, said they were still trying to determine what, if any, disruptions to their work had taken place.”

This is my two cents on this topic. I have a lot of respect for the Technical talent in India but if you cant maintain adequate IT infrastructure then it makes no sense to have DBA support offshore yet.

For those that want to read the entire article here is a link to it…..

Internet Outages Hit India, Middle East...

Posted Michael Corey, Ntirety

www.ntirety.com

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I have meant for a while to comment on Sun Microsystems buying MYSQL. People can't believe Sun Actually spent a billion dollars for MySQL.

When I talk to a lot of people they just don’t get it. I think its brilliant. Let me say it again, Great move Sun. If anything can save Sun and put them back into a strong market position this can.

I have always liked Sun’s computer equipment. Early in my career I worked for a major New England bank who shall remain nameless. They were big blue from head to toe. I was able to bring Sun Microsystems into the Bank. It was the first time in this bank they had anything but Big Blue running a mission critical database. I was able to use the database and application I was running as justification for bringing in a SUN box in a shop that was big blue head to toe

It was this banks first exposure to Unix operating system. I even had to build my own data center to put it into. I think they were afraid of the Big Blue boxes catching a bad Virus from the Sun Box. In this case I used it to run a Sybase database on. A Sun Box that is fine tuned to running MYSQL is a great reason to buy the Sun box.

Sun in my opinion has all the right pieces and now they have to execute well. I wish them a lot of luck. For those nay sayers. MySQL is here to stay, get use to it!

There was great article that I think did a great job of explaining why this makes a lot of sense. It was titled “Sun’s Best Buy Ever: MySQL” by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. I found it in EWEEK.com. Here is a link if your interest learning more….

Sun's Best Buy Ever: MySQL

Posted Michael Corey, Ntirety

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I know this is a bit off topic, but it hits home. Its concerns a first hand story of identity theft and some things I have learned that I would like to share.

One of my children who is in college received a notice about a credit card they filed for. When I asked my kid about it, they told me they had not applied for any credit cards. I thought it odd, and put it in the back of my mind to look at later. In hindsite we should have seen this as the first warning that someone was trying to steal our identity.

A few days later we went to purchase a car. When they pulled a credit report, it was clear that someone was trying to steal my child's identity.
We immediately filed a fraud report with all three-credit agencies.

Here are some other early warning signs someone is trying to steal your identity

You apply for a credit card and are turned down because of a low credit score, yet you know that you’ve always paid your accounts on time.

A debt collector calls to demand payment on a six-month overdue account for a credit card you have never had.

You receive a credit card in the mail that you’ve never applied for.

I then reached out to a good friend of mine who is a security specialist and works for a credit bureau. I asked him for some advice. He sent me a very informative email. I will not disclose his name at this point, because I do not have his permission. But I felt what he told me was so informative that I should share it with you all. This is a good blog to save someday in case you ever need itL


A good site to outline the steps to follow:

www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs17a.htm

Here is a fast track path approach:

FIRST, contact the fraud departments of each of the three major credit bureaus:

Equifax

www.equifax.com
To order your report, call: 1-800-685-1111
or write: P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
To report fraud, call: 1-800-525-6285
and write: P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241

Experian:

www.experian.com
To order your report, call: 1-888-EXPERIAN (397-3742)
or write: P.O. Box 2104, Allen TX 75013
To report fraud, call: 1-888-EXPERIAN (397-3742)
and write: P.O. Box 9532, Allen TX 75013

TransUnion:

www.transunion.com

To order your report, call: 800-916-8800
or write: P.O. Box 1000, Chester, PA 19022.
To report fraud, call: 1-800-680-7289
and write: Fraud Victim Assistance Division, P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92834-6790

SECOND, close the accounts that you know or believe have been tampered with or opened fraudulently.

THIRD, file a police report with your local police or the police in the community where the theft took place.

If you become a victim of identity theft involving federal education funds or suspect that your student information have been stolen, contact:

U.S. Department of Education,

Office of Inspector General Hotline: e-mail oig.hotline@ed.gov, 1-800-MISUSED (1-800-647-8733)

For more information or to report identity theft that does not involve federal education funds, visit the following sites:

Federal Trade Commission, 1-877-IDTHEFT (1-877-438-4338)
Internal Revenue Service
Social Security Administration, 1-800-269-0271

I hope you never need this information. But if you do here it is. I never thought I would need it. Its a scary thought that they would even attempt to steal the credit of a 19 year old.

Posted Michael Corey, Ntirety

www.ntirety.com

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Tusc out of Chicago was sold today. Congratulations Rich Niemiec, Joe Trezzo and Brad brown. They have been in the Oracle consulting arena since 1988. If my memory is correct all three founders worked at Oracle originally at one point. The have built an excellent consulting business with a solid reputation. When people ask me to recommend an Oracle consulting company I usually say Integra Consulting out of Waltham, Ma founded by David Teplow my old business partner. David started his Oracle career with Oracle version 2.0. You dont hear that too often.

Here is the Link to Integra Consulting if you are interested in learning more.........

Link to Integra Consulting a great oracle consulting house....

I prefer my clients to use Integra Consulting for Oracle services but I will say they would be in good hands with Tusc. Rich, Joe and Brad ran a solid business and did good work for their clients. It says in the press release that they will continue to lead the company. I hope that is the case; otherwise Oracle customers will loose a good source for Oracle expertise.

Congradulations to Rich, Brad & Joe. I hope this deal is all you hoped it would be for you , your company and your families.

For those interested in seeing the actual press release here is a link to it.

Rolta Announces acquisition of Tusc....


Posted Michael Corey, Ntirety

www.ntirety.com

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At Ntirety we are looking for a Oracle DBA with solid Oracle Rac Experience. A proved ability to install and support an Oracle Rac environment is key to this position.

You will be working with a team of Oracle DBA's that support Ntirety customers remotely across North America. It is preferred that you be located out of the Boston Area office but it is not a requirement.

Education:
• BS/MS CS or proven equivalent curriculum
Requirements:
• Oracle Rac implementation and support
• Oracle DBA with minimum 5 years experience preferred
• Knowledge of Oracle RDBMS in the NT, Linux, Unix preferred

• Database security and user account management
• Ability to Perform Database Audits
• Implementing backup and recovery processes
• Installation and configuration of Oracle database
• Prior experience in packaging/installation/upgrade of Oracle
• Knowledge of SQL and/or PLSQL
• Database/SQL Performance Tuning
• Team player with ability to multitask with minimal supervision and high reliability
• Strong drive to learn
• "Problem Solving" attitude
• Ability to work independently from a remote location

Interested parties send resumes to:

Tom.Kenney@ntirety.com

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It Ironic that as I researched the 7 deadly sins around database administration of both an Oracle database and a Microsoft SQL Server database, that the first two sins are almost identical. They just have a particular Microsoft twist or an Oracle twist to them.

To come up with the 7 deadly sins in each category, I went up to the oracle teams at Ntirety and in this case of Microsoft SQL server our database teams in that practice. Independent of each other, they came up with the same issues.

I wonder if I had told them what the other database team had said, if it would have changed the answer. There is a natural amount of competitiveness between the two camps. I find it interesting that most DBA's fall into one camp or the other. It’s rare that they will do both. If they are Oracle, they think windows operating system is evil. If they Microsoft SQL server they think Unix/Linux operating system is evil. In may career I have worked on many different relational databases from Oracle to Sybase. I have worked with Oracle since version 3.0. Yet I have to tell you I love the latest version of Microsoft SQL Server. When I look at what it can do and the price points it’s a heck of an offering.

Microsoft SQL Server has an optimizer that is uses to make decisions on how it responds to requests for information. In oracle we call this the cost based optimizer. Any of the hard core Microsoft SQL Server DBA’s who read this, feel free to correct me in the proper name for this optimizer. This optimizer makes decisions on the best way to retrieve information from the database. It know the difference between a 10 row table and a million row table. Would you rather join a 10 row table to a million row table or a million row table to a ten row table. How you do this makes a big difference on how fast the query will run. It know about table data and how it is distributed across the table. If there are 5 record type “A”’s and 10,000 Record type “B”’s then it will use record type “A” when it can over record type “B”. It knows the different indexes on a table and which one makes sense to use.

This optimizer if given proper information can make excellent decisions on how to help the database perform better. Many times when we look under the covers of a prospects database, we find they have not provided the Microsoft SQL Server optimizer any information or the information that is provided to it is very stale and out of date. Resulting in poor data for the Microsoft SQL Server optimizer with results in poor choices hurting overall database performance.

Here is a simple script that will call for a refresh of the index and table statistics for all user tables. This will then enable the optimizer to make appropriate choices.

set nocount on
declare @name sysname, @s nvarchar(250)
begin
declare updtable2 cursor local fast_forward for
select o.name from sysobjects o join sysindexes i on o.id = i.id
where o.xtype = 'U' and i.indid < 2
order by 1

open updtable2 fetch next from updtable2 into @name
while @@fetch_status = 0
begin
set @s = N'update statistics ' + quotename(@name)
print @s
exec (@s)
fetch next from updtable2 into @name
end
deallocate updtable2
end

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As they said in the Blues Brothers movie, "I am bringing the band back together".....

I have always been a huge fan of Precise Software and the people at Precise. Precise software developed some great database tools. They were the first company to do memory reads against the oracle database to gather database stats. They felt that the X$ tables the data was too old in an oracle database by the time it was there. When Precise was purchased by Veritas something was lost. When Veritas was purchased by Symantec a great product suite lost some focus. With this spinout of the Application Performance Suite I3 out of Symantec, I think we will see the focus come back. We will see a great suite of database tools get even better. I think Quest, BMC cannot be happy about this. They know first hand just how good these tools are. Now that the company will regain focus again, I think its better for the entire Industry. It will make the database tools get even better than they are now.

Here is a copy of the press release:

Vector Capital Acquires Application Performance Management Business from
Symantec



CUPERTINO, Calif. - Jan. 17, 2008 - Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC)
today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to sell its
Application Performance Management (APM) business to Vector Capital, a
San Francisco-based private equity firm specializing in spinouts,
buyouts and recapitalizations of established technology businesses.
Upon closing, the APM business will operate as a new, stand-alone
company called Precise Software Solutions Inc. The transaction, which
is subject to certain customary conditions, it expected to close by the
end of the first calendar quarter of 2008.

"Vector Capital has a proven track record for building strong technology
businesses out of divisions it purchases and will provide Symantec's APM
customers with a more dedicated focus and investment," said Greg
Butterfield, interim group president, Storage and Server Management
Group, Symantec. "Selling the APM business will allow the Storage and
Server management team to focus on securing and managing information."

"Having successfully spun out divisions from both Intel and Raytheon,
Vector Capital has a strong track record of restoring focus and growth
to non-core divisions of the largest global technology companies," said
Chris Nicholson, partner at Vector Capital. "We are committed to taking
great care of customers, delivering innovative products and creating
future opportunities for the employees of this business."

Upon closing of the transaction, Precise Software Solutions will take
over all development, product management, marketing and sales for the
APM business. To ensure a smooth transition for customers and the new
company overall, Symantec will continue to support the APM business post
closing via a transition services agreement. Additionally, Symantec and
Vector have signed an agreement allowing Symantec to continue to sell
APM software and support to its customers. Further, Symantec will
continue to honor the terms and conditions of its support commitments to
its customers, and will leverage the APM personnel transferred over to
Precise Software Solutions to ensure continuity of support.



About Symantec

Symantec is a global leader in infrastructure software, enabling
businesses and consumers to have confidence in a connected world. The
company helps customers protect their infrastructure, information and
interactions by delivering software and services that address risks to
security, availability, compliance and performance. Headquartered in
Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has operations in more than 40 countries.
More information is available at www.symantec.com

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: This press release contains statements that
may be considered forward-looking within the meaning of the U.S. federal
securities laws, including statements relating to the closing of the
sale of Symantec's APM business to Vector Capital and relating to the
post-closing relationship between Symantec and Vector Capital. These
statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and
other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from
results expressed or implied in this press release. Additional
information concerning these risk factors is contained in the Risk
Factors section of Symantec's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year
ended March 30, 2007.


Investment Team



Alex Slusky
Managing Partner
aslusky@vectorcapital.com



Amish Mehta
Partner
amehta@vectorcapital.com



Chris Nicholson
Partner
cnicholson@vectorcapital.com



Rob Amen
Principal
ramen@vectorcapital.com



David Fishman
Principal
dfishman@vectorcapital.com



Dewey Chambers
CFO
dchambers@vectorcapital.com



Jayee Xu

Vice President

jxu@vectorcapital.com



Jon Cheek

Associate

jcheek@vectorcapital.com


John Chen

Associate

jchen@vectorcapital.com


Kevin Chuang

Associate

kchuang@vectorcapital.com


Rock Meng
Associate
rmeng@vectorcapital.com


Ilya Voytov

Associate

ivoytov@vectorcapital.com


Shahan Zafar
Associate
szafar@vectorcapital.com




Contact Us


Vector Capital
456 Montgomery Street
19th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94104
Phone: (415) 293-5000
Fax: (415) 293-5100
Web: www.vectorcapital.com

About Vector Capital

Vector Capital is a leading private equity firm specializing in buyouts,
spinouts and recapitalizations of established technology businesses.
Vector identifies and pursues these complex investments in both the
private and public markets. Vector actively partners with management
teams to devise and execute new financial and business strategies that
materially improve the competitive standing of these businesses and
enhance their value for employees, customers and shareholders. Among
Vector's notable investments are SafeNet, Corel Corporation (Nasdaq:
CREL), Register.com, Savi Technology, LANDesk Software, Tripos, WinZip
and Watchguard Technologies. For more information, visit
www.vectorcapital.com

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