For the week of May 10th, 2012:

• New Research Examines the Top Issues in Managing Big and Unstructured Data
• IOUG Valued Members of Our Community Honored at COLLABORATE
• Updates from the IOUG Support Council
• Seminar Series: IOUG Security Survey: Enterprise Data at Risk

“IOUG Podcast 10-MAY-2012: New Research / IOUG Support Council / IOUG Seminar Series”

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New Research on Top Issues in Managing Big and Unstructured Data

According to a new survey of data managers and professionals unstructured data is on the rise, and ready to engulf the existing capacity current data management systems. Highlighted in the results is that management does not understand the challenge that is looming, and is failing to recognize the significance of unstructured data assets to the business. Unstructured data such as business documents and graphical files are named as the most difficult to manage. Adoption of non-relational databases is increasing as big data expands, but respondents are worried about the skills sets need to deliver solutions on these new platforms.  Cloud computing is also increasingly planned to be deployed or already in use, but there are continuing concerns about security To access the full report, “Big Data is Real and It is Here – 2012 Survey on Managing Big and Unstructured Data visit the website at www.marklogic.com

Valued Members of  IOUG Community Honored At COLLABORATE

Three individuals were recognized during the IOUG Welcome Reception at COLLABORATE 12 for their service to the IOUG community. Rich Niemiec was presented with the Chris Wooldridge Award for his outstanding volunteer service to IOUG. The Wooldridge award recognizes an individual who has donated a significant amount of time, energy and ideas to move the IOUG forward.

Arup Nanda received the SELECT Journal Editor’s Choice Award, for his technical article, “Cache Fusion Demystified.” This award is given to a SELECT Journal author each year at the annual conference for their excellence in a technical article as published in IOUG’s SELECT Journal magazine

IOUG bid farewell to its friend and close partner Mark Townsend, who passed away unexpectedly just prior to COLLABORATE 12. Townsend was posthumously awarded the Ken Jacobs Award for his dedication and service to IOUG on behalf of Oracle. This award recognizes an Oracle Corporation employee for their outstanding dedication and service to the user group community on behalf of Oracle. In order to be nominated for the Oracle Contribution Award, an individual must be a current Oracle employee. The award is intended to recognize a person who has positively affected the success of the IOUG through their continued support and contributions. Our congratulations go out to our award recipients this year and hope to recognize many more of our outstanding volunteers that make up the IOUG.

Updates from the IOUG Support Council

The IOUG has an established a Support Council that engages and collaborates with the Oracle Global Customer Support team to improve the overall customer experience through direct interaction with the global user community.

After meetings with Oracle during Collaborate, in addition to the previously announced educational focus on helping customers work with WebCenter capabilities, the Council reviewed the enhancements made earlier this year when the My Oracle Support HTML user interface transitioned to a new one built using Oracle’s own Application Development framework.  This transition was designed to enable a wider range of devices to access the My Oracle Support portal without having dependencies on third-party plug-in technologies. Visit supporthtml.oracle.com to use the new interface using your existing Single Sign-On credentials.  Additional features are forthcoming to support Oracle’s On Demand and CRM On Demand customers, as well as enhancements to Oracle Configuration Manager functionality.

By becoming a part of the IOUG Support Council you’ll have the chance to:

• Represent Oracle’s customer base on support issues
• Work with peers at other companies about ways to improve Oracle’s service
• Provide feedback to Oracle on the results of their Quality Assurance initiatives
• Get involved with Oracle Technology product testing
• Much, much more!

If you would like to become a part of the IOUG Support Council please email us at ioug@ioug.org with your request to join.

IOUG Seminar Series

Join IOUG at one of our upcoming free Oracle-sponsored security seminar series featuring highlights of the IOUG Security Survey: Enterprise Data at Risk. During these highly interactive sessions, Oracle security experts will discuss why organizations are at risk and how database security best practices can help reduce that risk by:

• Blocking SQL injection and other attacks
• Enforcing least-privilege access controls
• Auditing and monitoring database activity
• Masking data for nonproduction environments

With a recent Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) survey of information security professionals producing some staggering results, wherein 60% of respondents claimed that a data breach over the next 12 months is likely or unknown, you cannot afford to miss this free-of-charge and information-packed series to protect and defend your IT assets. Visit oracle.com and click on the banner links for the Event IOUG Security Survey coming this month to a city near you.