Conceptual Networking Project

During this course you will perform numerous exercises that will reinforce your knowledge of Oracle Network Services concepts and administration. The exercises focus initially on conceptual networking exercises and move into detailed techniques and syntax as the course progresses. In short, you will start with the basics and move into more advanced topics, essentially giving you all the hands-on experience you will need to tackle the Networking section of the OCP exam. The goal is to reinforce the concepts of Oracle Network Services through repetition, so you will start with simple parameter files and add details as you move through the course. By the time you have finished, you will have a complete set of Oracle Net parameter files. Much of the work in mastering Oracle networking is rote memorization. Hence, the exercises will focus primarily on the syntax required to define the networking environment. This concludes the first module of the course. In the next module, we will investigate Directory Naming and how the Names utility is used to manage a distributed network of computers.

The manager of a distributed database environment has security considerations over and above the typical user authentication and access level concerns of the single database environment. The DBA is responsible for ensuring the privacy and integrity of the data that travels the network and for implementing an appropriately secure user authentication policy. At the same time, any single database in a distributed environment must maintain a high degree of autonomy from the databases and machines with which it interacts. Oracle provides security mechanisms at several layers, including the levels of the database, operating system, and network. This chapter discusses how to implement a secure environment with these various levels and points out some situations that you should avoid.