Database Automation Key to Minimizing Potential Impact of the Change in Daylight Savings Time

A number of the leading database vendors, including Oracle, DB2 and SQL Server have already issued patches for either the physical server or the database itself. There are also patches for system clients -- meaning an exponential number of computers that simply connect into databases to capture data also have to be patched. The challenge facing many IT shops is how to efficiently and effectively manage the patch process across hundreds of thousands of databases supporting mission critical-applications.

"Every organization should immediately inventory all of their databases, analyze whether they have a Daylight Savings Time issue, and roll out patches if necessary," said Matthew Zito, chief scientist for GridApp Systems. "Obviously, this is a huge challenge for Database Administrators everywhere and makes automated database patching more critical than ever before."

GridApp Systems' Clarity database automation software enables organizations to automate patch installation by building a workflow that reduces the time required to implement patches from days and weeks to hours. Using the Clarity interface, IT shops can begin by testing patches in sandbox environments, then roll out the patches across as many or as few databases as necessary. GridApp Clarity(TM) also enables administrators to easily cross-check patch installation across the entire infrastructure, and monitor any changes in performance.

Using Clarity for patch management greatly simplifies patch installation, reducing the time and resources required for deployment by a factor of up to 75 percent. Moreover, with Clarity, database administrators can customize their workflow processes to ensure they always know the state of their databases -- such as which database have been patched, including information on when and why -- for improved standards enforcement, maximum database security, and efficiency.

"Since a number of databases rely on the operating system clock to provide the correct date and time -- just imagine if a server goes unpatched, and its clock is off by an hour, so a scheduled batch job fires an hour early," Zito said. "If another batch job on a properly patched server was supposed to run first, data could be lost, transactions miscounted, or there could be a number of other serious impacts."

"Many of the required system patches are grouped into larger patch sets, so it's possible that applying them may affect custom apps in unexpected ways," writes Jeffrey Hammond, senior analyst for Forrester Research. "Testing professionals should execute regression tests against patched systems to insure that they are functioning properly, especially in the case of poorly documented systems with old code ... Shops that have invested in configuration management tools will reap significant rewards by using them to automate patch installation from servers down to client systems." (Echoes of Y2K in Daylight-Saving Time Changes, Forrester Research, Inc., February 7, 2007)

About GridApp Systems

GridApp Systems is a leading provider of database automation solutions to help businesses gain control of their heterogeneous database infrastructures. Currently supporting hundreds of customer installations worldwide, across multiple industries such as financial services, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, education, eCommerce and technology, GridApp's market leading products and services have helped businesses deploy and better manage their critical database assets. GridApp Systems automates to help drive businesses forward. For more information, visit http://www.gridapp.com/.

Source:
GridApp Systems, Inc.

CONTACT:
Jeff Pecor of Barokas Public Relations, +1-206-264-8220,
jeff@barokas.com, for GridApp Systems; or Pia Chon of GridApp Systems,
+1-917-660-7462, pchon@gridapp.com

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