Iraje ActiveSecurity

ActiveDesigner

ActiveChangeManager (SSO)

ActiveSecureDBA

ActiveCompare

Active+

ActiveDesigner, ActiveChangeManager & SSO

The Iraje Designer Suite comprising primarily of ActiveDesigner/ActiveChangeManager/ActiveSecureDBA/ActiveCompare/Active+, was conceived with the intent of providing tools that enforced database security through the entire system life cycle, starting from design all the way into implementation and live production systems.

How does ActiveDesigner tools differ when compared with standard change management tools? The real difference is that it provides a set of working tools for developers, powerful development tools, with change management being enforced within the framework of these tools. This is vastly different from tools such as PVCS or Visual SourceSafe, whereby, neither are these tools development tools nor do they provide fine granularity in tracking database related changes. Databases sit at the heart of any organizations corporate IT infrastructure, and thus, tracking database changes is of utmost importance. No other designer or development tool enforces controls like the ActiveDesigner/ActiveChangeManager/ActiveSecureDBA/ActiveCompare/Active+ solution.

Purpose of ActiveDesigner/ActiveChangeManager/SSO: To provide a framework of design & development tools that ENFORCE change management and security as an inherent characteristic. In other words, "The development tools are themselves the change management security tools".

• ActiveDesigner is the only designer with complete change management functionality fully integrated into the design and development tasks across the development life-cycle, at the database level, for use by database designers, developers, DBAs as well as team leads and managers. Empowers every developer in the organization by providing a persistent live window into the database.
• Provides Team leads and Managers visibility on the management of the database development process, showing the database changes happening live on the screen. Examples: Are database definitions being added in every database? Are changes being managed effectively across instances? What are the database activities for the day that were performed by a contractor, what queries were run, what database objects were modified? The live data model on the manager’s screen shows a switch in object color when the object is accessed or modified by team members/developers.
• ActiveDesigner provides several reports such as schema lists with field comments. These reports can be generated by a few simple clicks by developers as well as managers across worldwide corporate locations. All information is in the database, there is no need to search for documentation in artificial repositories.
• A review of the recorded changes reflects the true state of the database because changes are controlled directly at the database level.
• ActiveDesigner instantaneously identifies flaws in the design by graphically displaying the tables and foreign keys. Missing links and missing objects are displayed with a single click in a single view.
• ActiveDesigner has been architected in reverse, graphically displaying tables/relationships within seconds/minutes by reverse engineering the database information directly into memory.
• Table and field comments can be added directly into the database.
• Auto-refresh for multiple simultaneous live connections directly to the database by multiple users distributed worldwide. Everyone is hooked onto the database simultaneously, corporate-wide, with appropriate privileges. An active log of all changes that are being made to the database objects is automatically maintained.
• Separation of privileges for users by "view only" to "full changes allowed"
• Provides controlled mechanism to move changes across instances using the Active logs, e.g. From DEVL to TEST to STAGING to PROD
• Encryption of the database password: Access to the ActiveDesigner session controlled via the encryption algorithm in ActiveChangeManager effectively eliminates the necessity of giving the database passwords especially of PROD databases.
• ActiveChangeManager task list allows the DBA to configure tasks in the database with encrypted passwords thus providing a SSO (Single Sign On) access to other applications across the corporate network.

ActiveSecureDBA

A production system requires constant monitoring, maintenance and management. Database professionals must enter these database systems using privileged account logins in order to complete routine database tasks. Production systems in the financial sectors such as banks, investment firms, securities firms, and the likes require very high security. This constant monitoring and maintenance requirement by production database systems poses a significant challenge with respect to security.

Purpose of ActiveSecureDBA: To empower database professionals with tools that allow the performance of all DBA tasks including complete monitoring and maintenance of live sensitive production databases with security, privilege controls and audits.

ActiveSecureDBA attempts to raise the database security to a level that currently has no parallel in the industry. This includes completely encrypting the database passwords, such that it is not known to anyone in the organization.

ActiveSecureDBA treats the database like a security vault. High level passwords must be entered simultaneously by multiple senior management professionals, which then generates a secret database password. This database password is completely hidden since it is unknown to any user. Thus, there is no possibility of accessing the database directly via any other means or tools. Using ActiveSecureDBA, all actions allowed on the databases can be selectively granted to the DBAs with the actions being recorded when executed. ActiveSecureDBA increases the productivity of DBAs at the same time exponentially enhancing the security with encrypted passwords and menu driven controls.

ActiveCompare

An application can only be tested in the TEST staging environment, but it must be deployed in PROD production environment. Isn’t that an irony? The application cannot be tested in the very environment in which it is expected to perform error-free. The result is numerous errors that appear over several months, with users hitting one error at a time, frustrating the entire support organization. This exercise is time consuming and immediately converts to real dollar costs to the company, starting with the development and support teams on upstream to all system users who may including the CIO/CEO as well.

And, the database is probably the most important part of this deployment puzzle, because it is central to every piece of corporate data, old and new. Should we not try to guarantee that an application tested in TEST will without a doubt work error-free in the production PROD environment?

Purpose of ActiveCompare: To prove that everything that was tested in the TEST staging database environment was transferred correctly to the PROD production environment, with every transfer recorded, and with a guarantee that the PROD and TEST/STAGING are identical as per established guidelines.

• ActiveCompare compares schemas across multiple instances
• Shows the delta for both databases simultaneously, side-by-side.
• Allows compare options to be set with fine granularity, ignoring characteristics as per user settings, such as comments, storage, etc.
• Generates the alter scripts to synch up the databases.
• Allows for direct execution of the sql for synching up the databases.
• Records all the sql execution into ActiveChangeManager as a record of all changes made.
• Changes can be selected and executed via the ActiveChangeManager in a controlled manner, on one or several other databases as required.

Active+

A user with direct database access can potentially destroy a production database with no accountability. Active+ attempts to bridge this gap by providing the DBA with an easy to edit workarea, tightly controlled by privileges as set in ActiveChangeManager, with constant recording of the activities being performed on the database, including select statements:

• Ease of use in editing and executing SQL commands via an OLE window that allows the user to copy, cut, paste, print, recall and generate SQL commands.
• Restrict SQL execution as per privileges set in ActiveChangeManager.
• Audit log of every SQL including DDL and DML commands, which are executed by users. The statements are logged with ActiveChangeManagerTM. Thus, user DDL/DML activity across the database instance can be reviewed.
• Query Builder in Active+ allows the user to quickly generate SQL select, insert, update and delete statements via simple clicks.
• Build controls on data access by restricting specific select statements via Active+. E.g.: restrict "IDENTIFIED BY", will restrict even a DBA user from changing the database passwords, at the same time allowing other DBA commands to be executed.