Category Archives: Books

Book reviews, comments and recommended reading

Oracle Fusion Applications Development and Extensibility Handbook – review Chapters 1 & 2

13 Thursday Mar 2014

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So I’ve got through the first couple of chapters of Oracle Fusion Applications Development and Extensibility Handbook (Oracle Press). The book starts with a presumption of minimal knowledge so the first chapter provides an excellent high level overview on the framework and assembly of Fusion Applications and some of the principles such as Weblogic node management. Although an appreciation of non Fusion Apps will give you a sense of some ideas such as Flexfields would be useful at this stage, but they are explained in a lot more depth later on.

Chapter 2 moves onto the different kinds of customisation that can be performed and how those customisations are achieved from user configuration through to tools in the Fusion Apps and onto JDeveloper and the Fusion Apps libraries. The interesting thing is that all though it is clear a lot of work has gone into managing the dev and test cycles on a shared Fusion Apps platform including potential change conflict management there seems to be little for direct linkage or built in configuration management.

In terms of a book, it has started very well, providing a sense of over all shape of Fusion Apps in a very readable and informative  manner.  I think this is going to be a informative & easy read.

Oracle Fusion Apps at Google

Next book review – Oracle Fusion Applications

05 Wednesday Feb 2014

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The next book up for review is going to be Oracle Fusion Applications Development and Extensibility Handbook (Oracle Press)

I have to declare a slight interest in my reviewing as I have had the good fortune to work with one of the authors- Vladimir Ajvaz; and extremely knowledgeable and talented Application Architect.

Oracle Fusion Applications

Enterprise Security – A Data Centric Approach – A brief review

05 Wednesday Feb 2014

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So I have previously blogged a series of largely chapter by chapter reviews of Aaron Woody’s book Enterprise Security – A Data Centric Approach. This post tries to provide a brief summarised view pulling my thoughts of the book overall together.

As an Enterprise Architect I took an interest in this book as an opportunity to validate my understanding of security and ensure in the design and guidance work that I do I am providing good insights and directions so that the application architects and developers are both ensuring good security practices and also asking the helpful information available to other teams such as IT Security, operational support and so on.

The book has been overall very well written and extremely accessible to even those not versed in the dark arts of IT Security. Anyone in my position, or fulfilling a role as an application designer or product development manager would really benefit from this book. Even those on the business end of IT would probably benefit in terms of garnering an insight into what IT Security should be seeking to achieve and why they often appear to make lives more difficult (I.e. putting restrictions in, perhaps blocking your favourite websites).

So why so helpful, well Aaron has explained the issues and challenges that need to be confronted in terms of Security from the perspective of the organisations key assets – mainly its data (certainly the asset that is likely to cause most visible problems if compromised). Not only that the book presents a framework to help qualify and quantify the risks as a result device a justifiable approach to securing the data and most importantly make defensible cases for budget spend.

I have to admit that the 1st chapter that that introduces the initial step in the strategy was a bit of a struggle as it seemed to adopt and try to define a view of the world that felt a little too simplistic. The truth is that this the 1st step in a journey, and in hindsight important – so stick with it.

Once the basic framework is in place we start looking at tooling strategies and technologies to start facilitating security. The book addresses categories of product rather than specific solutions so the book isn’t going to date too quickly. The solution examination includes the pros and cons of their use (e.g wifi lock down) which is very helpful.

Finally to really help the book comes with a rich set of appendices providing a raft of references to additional material that will help people translate principles into practice.

To conclude, a little effort maybe needed to get you started but ultimately a well written, informative, information rich book on security.

Previous blog entries:

There is also a supporting website for the book athttp://www.datacentricsec.com/
Enterprise Security - A Data Centric Approach

Enterprise Security – A Data Centric Approach – the final chapter

05 Wednesday Feb 2014

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so I have reached the final chapter of the book which covers the handling of security events and security incidents (the differentiation of the two being the consequences of the event – a piece of malware being detected on a desktop can an event as the consequences are relatively trivial compared to the defacing of an e’tailer’s website).

I have to admit I glossed through this chapter as my role within an organisation doesn’t demand the operational management of issues. That said, the book provides some clear guidance on how to develop a process to support the handling of a security issue – important as you don’t want be figuring these things out when something happens, you want to get on and focus on execution. s with previous chapters, this well written and doesn’t demand knowledge of security dark arts to get to grips with.

The book finishes with a series of appendices which provides some illustrative information for chapters in the book, plus a series of appendices of really useful additional reference information sites cover a spectrum of information from security education resources to security tools.

This series of blogs on this book will wrapped up with a short review of the whole book. But I would like to congratulate Aaron Woody on a fine book rich with helpful additional information.

Previous blog entries:

There is also a supporting website for the book athttp://www.datacentricsec.com/
Enterprise Security - A Data Centric Approach

Enterprise Security – A Data Centric Approach – Chapters 7 & 8

28 Tuesday Jan 2014

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Chapters 7 and 8 of the book in many respects are the polar opposites in their nature, with Chapter 7 looking at Wireless networks in the Enterprise and technicalities of different encryption frameworks, authentication and authorization.  Then at the other end is chapter 8 facing into the difficulties of social engineering – the approach of using people’s own nature to divulge sensitive information.  Probably one of the most famous people for this sort of thing is Kevin Mitnick and to acts of social engineering are will illustrated in the influential book  Bruce Stirling’s Hacker Crackdown.

Although Chapter 7 is addressing an area many would view as the dark art of wireless network setup; it is well explained and actually worth reading by anyone who would like to better understand their own home wireless network as lot of the information (not all) is relevant even in that context. For example the benefit of supressing the visibility of the Network ID (SSID) doesn’t make the network invisible – it simply makes it harder to spot as any device such as smart phone will call out yo the network to see if it is present and this information can be picked up just as easily if you know what you’re doing.

Drilling into the social engineering aspect, the book looks at the more obvious and perhaps brute force models such as spam to increasingly subtle takes such using social media communications through the likes of linkedin to send emails loaded with malware and see the end user open them. For example pretending to be an agent with a job offer who has found you via LinkedIn. But beyond that, the amount of information being made available via social sites as it can be a means to establish a organisations’ IT fingerprint and therefore suggest the best routes to attacking IT.  The chapter addresses training, and the pros and cons of different approaches, plus mitigation strategies for the different attack strategies.

Previous blog entries:

There is also a supporting website for the book athttp://www.datacentricsec.com/
Enterprise Security - A Data Centric Approach

Enterprise Security – A Data Centric Approach – Chapters 5 & 6

17 Friday Jan 2014

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Continuing with Enterprise Security: A Data-Centric Approach to Securing the Enterprise by Aaron Woody Chapter 5 gest into some of the security processes and technologies to securing you compute platforms covering topics such as:

  • anti-virus (or not),
  • network lock down through the use of local firewalls built into the OS (so people can’t then just access the server by any means they desire SSH, RDP, telnet etc)
  • user permissions
  • auditing (so you can see what is happening/happened and by whom)
  • detection of file change in parts of the system that shouldn’t change except through specific mechanisms e.g. OS files should only change when patching the OS

But more importantly the chapter links these kinds of activities to the analysis of risk and previously developed trust models. So that you can understand how much security is suitable and justifiable.  The ideas along with the pros and cons of each activity are well explained and clearly presented.

Chapter 6 takes us back to central theme of the book – data.  With our policies and models identified we need to locate the data – this is harder than it may sound, not everything is in a database (the amount of business operation that runs on spreadsheets on people’s desktops, is endlessly amazing and then compounded by how we make the data collaborative – emailing, moving with personal USB storage, cloud services and on and on). To help find, track and potentially constrain it  (prevent undue leakage) the book walks through the ideas of classification and ownership/accountability and then really starts to tie together the earlier chapters, as well as introduce some additional technology concepts such as the encryption of data when in transit and at rest. Like chapter 5, you don’t need a PhD to understand where to apply security and why – the doing maybe a different kettle of fish of course.

Previous blog entries:

There is also a supporting website for the book athttp://www.datacentricsec.com/
Enterprise Security - A Data Centric Approach

Vinyl Junkies – Adventures In Record Collecting A Review

09 Thursday Jan 2014

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So I’ve been luxuriating in reading some books more for the pleasure of it (rather than technical stuff to help authors or the day job).  This book is about, record collectors, the act of record collecting and the general love for music both mainstream, obscure and just down right freaky. For the music fan this is Mills & Boon reading.  For those related or taken on the challenge of a partner who is a record collector an insight into the mind of your loved one.

The books tries to explain the passion of collecting from many different perspectives, through the eyes of collectors (some famous – like Peter Buck (of REM fame), Robert Crumb (cartoonist) and Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), others not so famous but equally obsessed. From a psychologist point of view – clinical (relationship to low sertraline) to psychotherapy.  As a result we get discussions about the sensuality of vinyl and wonderful quotes like “CDs are like sex with a condom”.

We explore the kinds of collecting that go on – from types of records – old pre-war 78s, 1st issues of records, special prints like shaped coloured vinyl, those quickly taken out of circulation through to records that just seem to be rare and then the plain odd like albums commissioned by Listerine (the mouthwash) advocating the product’s wonders to people thinking they’re going to make it big putting out just tuneless oddities, to the child like contributions like Sammy Squirrel Teaches the Multiplication Tables (Which apparently has a publisher’s address on the cover of The Metaphysical Motivational institute, Drawer 400, Ruidoso, NM) and psychotic wonders such  as “Sit on My Face, Stevie Nicks” by the Rotters and Naughty Rock ‘n’ Roll by the P-Verts or maybe various artists on the Sugar Tits Label.

As the book progresses we get a chance to be taken on an exploration of the validity of the portrayal of collector/obsessive music fan portrayed in Nick Hornby’s book High Fidelity by the character Rob Gordon (portrayed by John Cusack in Stephen Frears‘ cinematic adaptation);  music collectors are geeky single men that can’t sustain a relationship etc.

The book is however 10 years old – and sadly doesn’t reflect how the rise in Mp3s has impacted.  As everything get ripped and becomes for ever available (legally or illegally) on the web, what is happening to the passion of the hunt for the mysterious, weird and rare?  Who knows, but its fun hearing the stories.

Vinyl Junkies

Enterprise Security – A Data Centric Approach – Chapter 4

01 Wednesday Jan 2014

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Continuing into a chapter 4 of
Enterprise Security: A Data-Centric Approach to Securing the Enterprise by Aaron Woody we start to look at some technical aspects of security and technology covering things like the capabilities of new generation of firewalls, DNS security and so on. The information is presented in a very readable manner.

As an Enterprise Technology Architect, and having security specialist friends I thought I was reasonably well informed in this aspect of IT, but the book still taught me me things. Interestingly, perhaps not intended but the chapter left me with a number of things that could be incorporated into development governance that would make the work of network security a lot easier.

The chapter continues with lots of really helpful references many, maybe all are incorporated into a series of appendices that are full of helpful information references and links. If these are made available on the book’s website (see below) it would likely become a must go to site for security resources.

It does leave me asking one question how does this all fit in when using a PaaS solution such as those offered by the likes of Amazon and Rackspace?

Previous blog entries:

The book has been published by Packt (who at the time of writing are running a promotion – more here)

There is also a supporting website for the book at http://www.datacentricsec.com/
Enterprise Security - A Data Centric Approach

Enterprise Security – A Data Centric Approach — Chapter 3

29 Sunday Dec 2013

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So I’m back to reading Enterprise Security: A Data-Centric Approach to Securing the Enterprise by Aaron Woody. I’ve not finished reading the book yet but as I’m reviewing one or two chapters at a time, I thought I’d blog about Chapter 3 – particularly given its value (previous blog entry here and here).

Chapter 3 goes by the name of Security As A Process, which addresses the processes to determining security risk, the analysis of cost benefit of implementing security features to address those risks. The chapter then goes on to provide guidance on defining good policies and standards.

In hindsight the process for determining and analyzing the security risks and classifying them is fairly obvious – it took the reading to to draw the points and the mechanisms into focus. But the fact it makes sense in hindsight suggests that the approach the workability and the chance for the business to understand the risks and challenges being taken on.

The chapter also provides some really good information sources for people to use to support the adotion of the processes described. Some I’ve known about such as the SANS Institute others I hadn’t.

I have to say that based on the strength of this chapter alone I’d recommend the book to any architect who is seeking to develop practical appreciation of addressing security considerations or understand what they should be looking for what to ask for in a new organisation. Those trying to drive up the quality of processes or get across the need for a more proactive security strategy that is also pragmatic – reading this chapter alone should help provide some serious points to get a handle on things.

The book has been published by Packt (who at the time of writing are running a promotion – more here)

There is also a supporting website for the book at http://www.datacentricsec.com/
Enterprise Security - A Data Centric Approach

Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age

29 Sunday Dec 2013

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With the holiday break, I’ve had a bit of time to get through some reading, including finishing Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age. This an excellent book on how the music industry has managed to shoot itself in the feet a number of times (and with a canon at that); although it does only cover events upto 2008 (as we enter 2014 it would be brilliant to see an additional chapter to get insight into how the resurgence of vinyl and the rise of Spotify has impacted thinking – beyond the deadlines of complaints by the likes of Thom Yorke about Spotify).

Thw book feels well researched (certainly references hold testimony to this), but at the same time it doesn’t read like a dry academic read that you would associate with such a well researched text. But given the attitudes and behaviours of some of the individuals in the big labels their egos run riot far more than most of the ‘rock gods’ that they’re trying to sell.

Steve Knopper has done a great job with the book and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in music or how technology such as peer-to-peer has impacted the media industry. You dont need to be a music fiend or geek to find this a satisfying read.

Steve’s website is http://knopps.com/