[39] in Tooltime
Scopus conference call notes
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barbara Goguen)
Mon Mar 4 09:18:27 1996
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 09:18:14 -0500
To: tooltime@MIT.EDU, leclair@MIT.EDU, wade@MIT.EDU, paheff@MIT.EDU,
cec@MIT.EDU
From: goguen@MIT.EDU (Barbara Goguen)
Cc: leclair@MIT.EDU, wade@MIT.EDU, paheff@MIT.EDU, cec@MIT.EDU
First, many thanks to Carol, Jim and Steve for taking the time to
participate in ths conference call! Following are some notes I scribbled
during the call. If there are inaccuracies, I apologize and ask to be
corrected. Also, let's (tootime members and others that wish to
participate) plan to get together tomorrow at 10am in 11-124A to discuss
overall reactions and strategies for moving forward given this information.
----------
Participating in conference call: Barbara, Jim Repa, Steve Wade Neiterman
Coach, Carol LeClair; Tim Guleri, Kira McAgon, Dick Campbell, and Taggert
from Scopus.
They started by asking what we want to do with Kerberos? We want to avoid
sending passwords in the clear over the net. We want the namespace
management capabilities that Kerberos affords us.
Are they running on SQL*Net 2.1? They are currently running on 2.0. They
will start certifying on 2.1 next month. MIT ought to be able to use it
within that 1 month or so timeframe.
How about their use of SNS? Their response was that they won't be doing
anything with it but that it shouldn't be an issue if it is transparent to
SQL*Net. They will not be testing SNS, but they did say that they would do
the necessary work to make sure we can use it. They are not seeing this
requirement for SNS from the rest of their customer base. Therefore they
are not planning to productize kerberos security. They did say that they
have 3 or so other customers asking for it.
What versions of Oracle are they running on? Currently they run on 7.1,
and nearing readiness on 7.3. 7.2 they have skipped - need a patch for 7.2
because there is a problem (at Oracle end) with how text gets written.
Does their code use cost-based or rule-based optimizer? Their answer was
that they can use either, but that they generally try to go with
rule-based. Carol LeClair pointed out that Oracle will be dropping support
for cost-based. Their response was that if there are problem areas in
their code because of using cost-based, they will be working on them.
Field and record based security on database? They said that we could
define the views at the Oracle level. They support all security mechanisms
that are built into Oracle. Their client security is an add-on not a
replacement for Oracle's database security. Their security controls the
metadata.
Do they have requirements for naming conventions? They do not have
requirements but recommendations. They mentioned a guide that they have,
but there is no actual penalty for not using their naming conventions.
GUI interface for maintaining usernames? Yes, they have a GUI interface
that allows you to add users to the database. The table in the Oracle
database that contains this information is the Profiles table.
Do they require any set passwords for upgrades? No
Backups and restores? Can freely use Oracle facilities for backup and restores.
Authentication on the Mac - SNS is currently not available on the Mac. How
easy/hard might it be for us to build a kluge that pre-authenticates
outside application a one-time only password into the database? What would
this require? Their initial response was that they did not think this
should be too much of a problem. We apparently need access to their login
dialog box, and would want to do an out of band transaction to call C
routines. They said there's no hook now to do this, but they think it is
doable. How long is "doable"? They responded that they didn't think it
would take long. We explained that we would do a Mac shared library call.
They think they support shared libraries on the Mac, but are not sure.
They do support Apple Events.
Problems with our Mac installs? There is a bug in the release that causes
Scopus on certain Mac platforms to look for a preferences file before it
has created one. If it does not find the preferences file, it will crash.
The solution - copy the preferences file from a machine that has
successfully installed and run Scopus.
Web interface access for us to explore at their site? userid: e_demo,
password: e_vision. Get into their web site at scopus.com. Look in upper
right corner for icon labelled SuperNav and click on it. Look at bottom of
page for blue box demo and run it.
Will they run with Oracle Web Server? Haven't certified on it yet but
think they will run with it in future.
-barbara
goguen@mit.edu
617-253-6135
