Discussion on:

Create secure virtual private databases in Oracle

The concept, as I recognise it, has been around for years: its data level security based upon the user id such that a user sees only rows that he is allowed to by the Oracle administrator. Oracle have implemented a manual version of this in their Applications using Views, an instance variable, a stored procedure and a constraint that all users must connect as themselves. We can implement the same idea in Cognos ReportNet using model filters but on web applications, the challenge seems to be how to identify the users from the database server; in Cognos reoporting the application knows who the user is but the database does not as requrests are made by an administration user. So its not difficult for us to implement (I think?) in CRN but its become impossible to do at the database level without this kind of feature being provided by the db vendor.

I suspect it is yet another move to take functionality from applications down to the database level and the term 'Virtual Private Database Table' is packaged version of the technique that has been used for many years just as table partitioning had been used for years as a technique prior to it being instroduced by Oracle as a feature.

My gut feel is that we can do this in CRN and without writing plsql procedures so it?s a lot easier for an application administrator to maintain whereas the Virtual Private Databases is purely in the database administrator domain and outside the field of view of the smart users and applications support people. Furthermore, the CRN approach is generic and not tied to Oracle.
?

Roger Jackson

Principal Consultant
( +44 / (0)78 1055 4586
* roger.jackson@cognos.com
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