RE: MIDRANGE-L Digest V3 #397

[Buck Calabro <buck.calabro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>Johnny Helms wrote:
>>I am looking for suggestions on how to secure a current 
>>production AS/400 that has programmer's using DFU 
>>to change data in files. 

>Booth Martin wrote:
>This doesn't make sense.  Ask him to be more explicit.  
>Of course data has to be changed!  My goodness, 
>how would a business function otherwise?

In a perfect world, programmers should not have access to production data.
Keeps the production data safe from testing mistakes (at the very least.)
End-users should have access, but through application programs.  Direct
access to data (with ODBC, Query, ftp or the like) is an invitation for a
bad time.  Pitfalls:
1) End user doesn't completely understand the lifetime of the file (i.e. a
transaction file that hasn't been cleared holds "stale" data)
2) End user doesn't completely understand which file holds what data (i.e.
multiple files with similar names)
3) End user doesn't completely understand which field holds what data (i.e.
STATUS contains SIC code or the like)
4) End user doesn't completely understand which fields are used as the key
for JOIN operations
5) End user doesn't completely understand the performance ramifications

Many (all?) of these can be alleviated with the creation of an application
that specially builds export/import files for end users to play with
directly.  This helps keep the production data safe from mis-interpretation
and bad uploads.

Opinion worth every schilling you paid for it!  :-)

Buck Calabro
Aptis; Albany, NY


Billing Concepts Corp., a NASDAQ Listed Company, Symbol: BILL
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