Editor’s Note: Because our bloggers have lots of useful tips, every now and then we bring forward a popular post from the past. We originally published today’s post on December 12, 2019. This is the first of a series of…

Editor’s Note: Because our bloggers have lots of useful tips, every now and then we bring forward a popular post from the past. We originally published today’s post on December 16, 2019. This is the second of a series of…

As business entities move some of their services to Microsoft Azure Cloud (Azure), we see hybrid networks emerge that can span multiple physical sites and multiple cloud environments. Connecting those network segments securely can present some challenges. I’ve encountered two types…

Cloud functions allow you to run single-purpose functions without having to manage instances in Google Cloud. Cloud SQL is Google Cloud’s managed SQL service. For better security, it’s best practice to disable public IP in Cloud SQL. In terraform, the…

Your mission: Gather a list of servers in a specific collection on System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) so you or your client can verify the servers in the collection. How will you do it? First, a disclaimer. I’m a data…

With many companies investigating or enacting remote work options in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the Pythian team would like to share their best advice to those companies considering a move to remote work. Here are some of our remote…

Often we get involved in projects where there are all sorts of stringent security requirements. In this post, I will share a few of the methods used to meet these security requirements within Google Cloud Platform (GCP), while still allowing…

Disable SELinux? Think again! SELinux is always a complicated topic. If you search this on the web, most people will advise just disabling it, but that may not be acceptable from a security point of view in your organization. In…

Configuration files management is the core component of every configuration management tool. Templates are one of the best methods for creating configuration files as they allow dynamic variables. Ansible has a template module that uses Jinja2 in its core. Jinja2…

If you work with Data Guard, the lag between the primary and standby database is an informative but difficult metric to measure. I’ve encountered some “solutions” that use the COMPLETION_TIME in (G)V$ARCHIVED_LOG for the standby destination as the time of…