In this episode, we'll talk about Security and Control with Exadata We'll explore how organizations can benefit from cloud innovation while keeping full control over their data — a critical challenge in today's digital world. ---------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript:

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:44:19 Unknown Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies, and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders of the future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy prepares next generation workforce. I'm your host, Alba Joven, and today I am joined by Sylvia Adrdilo an Exadata Cloud customer Service Specialist at Oracle.

00:00:44:21 - 00:01:11:21 Unknown In this episode we will talk about bringing the cloud to you. Security and control with Exadata. We will explore how organizations can benefit from cloud innovation while keeping full control over the data. A critical challenge is to date digital work. So let's get started. To start off, Sylvia, I would love you to share a bit about your background and your current role at Oracle.

00:01:11:22 - 00:01:47:10 Unknown Absolutely. And first of all, thank you so much for having me here. It's, it's absolutely a pleasure. So my journey started with my graduated as a telecommunications engineer from the University of Malaga in Spain in 2014, and after I finish my studies, I jumped straight into the IT world. And it's been over ten years now. So early on I worked on several companies like IBM and U next and Indra, and during those years I mainly worked as a backend developer in several technologies.

00:01:47:12 - 00:02:16:08 Unknown And I have to say that it was a great foundation because you really get to understand how systems talk to each other behind the scenes, which later became super valuable. And after that, I moved into a more operational role. I was a support lead for UCS as Smart Metering Implementation Program, or MIP in Accenture, and as me was at the time, and still is actually a massive national project to modernize how energy usage is tracked across the country.

00:02:16:10 - 00:02:45:03 Unknown And in that role, I supported everything from from manufacturing the smart meters to getting them delivered to warehouses, activating their SIM cards, installing them in homes, and even managing the returns under the activation processes. It was it was a lot about ensuring that that such a massive operation run smoothly, run securely. I was solving incidents quickly, but but also you had to make sure that they were solved correctly.

00:02:45:05 - 00:03:08:21 Unknown So that millions of people were affected. And that really taught me how critical operation, security and resilience are when you're dealing with important data, national infrastructure. And then in in 2021, I joined Oracle as a cloud systems solution engineer. And in that role I started working much closer with customers. I was involved in the pre-sales side of the deals.

00:03:08:23 - 00:03:36:19 Unknown I was doing technical presentations, workshops. I was learning about all kinds of different Oracle technologies. Oracle's hardware portfolio, and also about data center setups and and the needs from different industries. And then last year, in 2024, I moved to my current role as an Excel Data Cloud customer specialist. And in this role I continue supporting our sales team from from a technical standpoint, during the pre-sales process.

00:03:36:22 - 00:04:06:21 Unknown But now I'm more focused or solely focused on Exadata Cloud customer. So basically I help customers and I help internal teams understand what Exadata Cloud Customer is, how it fits into their IT strategy, and especially how it can meet their security and operational needs. So I deliver workshops, I answer technical questions, I join customer meetings, create documentation, and also help train our internal teams so that everyone stays sharp on the technology.

00:04:06:23 - 00:04:32:18 Unknown So to summarize, my my whole career has been about understanding technology deeply and then helping people use it safely and effectively. So now let's talk about a crucial topic that is data security. Can you explain what data security is and why it's so important in today's world? Think of data security like the lock and the alarm system of your home.

00:04:32:20 - 00:05:10:17 Unknown So you keep your doors locked. Maybe you have cameras, sensors, alarms, whatever. All because what's inside your house is valuable and personal. Now, in the digital world, your data, whether it's research papers, personal information or medical records, business transactions and so on is just as valuable, if not more. So data security is the set of practices and technologies that we use to protect that digital home from unauthorized access from theft, corruption or misuse.

00:05:10:19 - 00:05:43:05 Unknown Now, why is it important? Well, because we live in a world where data is currency. So companies, governments and even criminals, they know the power of having information, right? So if someone steals your research, they could profit off your hard work. If they get access to personal data, they can commit identity theft or fraud. If they access login details from a company, they can sell them to malicious actors who impersonate you to steal your information, and so on.

00:05:43:07 - 00:06:12:08 Unknown So on a larger scale, data breaches can cause massive reputational damage to companies. People lose trust in institutions that that can't protect their information. So we have discussed why that is important. But what would you say that are the biggest challenges organizations face trying to protect their data? In that context, what are the best practices you would recommend to follow?

00:06:12:10 - 00:06:42:20 Unknown This is where it gets really interesting, actually and honestly, it's a little bit daunting. So the first challenge is the speed of change. Technology evolves super fast. And unfortunately hackers do also. and another challenge is complexity. So organizations today have data spread across servers, across personal devices, a cloud services, applications or whatever. And every one of those extra connection points is a potential risk, right?

00:06:42:22 - 00:07:14:13 Unknown But actually, one of the biggest risks isn't actually the technology, but the human error. So what does it mean? Well, clicking a bad link, using weak passwords, not updating software, sending confidential information or messaging apps not authorized by the organization. A small mistake like this can have really huge consequences. And even the most advanced security systems cannot really protect against someone accidentally opening the wrong email attachment.

00:07:14:15 - 00:07:39:02 Unknown As for best practices, I think I will summarize. I will summarize them in five areas. So the first one will be to encrypt everything. Encryption is like writing data in a made up language. So even if someone intercepts it, they can't understand. They can understand what's written in it. Nor do anything with it. The second will be the least privilege.

00:07:39:04 - 00:08:05:19 Unknown So only give people access to what they truly need. It's like giving someone a key to just one room instead of the whole building. The third one will be batching and updating systems. So software updates are how we fix security issues or bugs before bad actors can exploit them, right before they can use them in their favor to access their systems.

00:08:05:20 - 00:08:34:07 Unknown Fourth one would be continuous monitoring. So basically do not assume that everything is fine. Use tools to keep an eye on activity. To spot suspicious behavior early and to alert the right people. And fifth. Well, it's, security awareness training, right? This tries to address what I mentioned before on the human error factor. So teach everyone, teach your employees, students, your family members the basics.

00:08:34:09 - 00:09:02:02 Unknown Because awareness is often the first down the best line of of defense. Let's dive a little bit into xCloud consumer. For those who might not be familiar. Can you explain what it is and how it helps address the data security challenge that you just have discussed? Yes, absolutely. And I love this question for obvious reasons. So Exadata Cloud Customer is is a smart solution to a big modern problem.

00:09:02:04 - 00:09:30:15 Unknown Okay. So first of all think of what organizations want today. They want the power and the flexibility of the cloud. That means being able to scale resources up and down. They want to use the latest technology. Automate a lot of tasks, but they also want to keep that control and security. This applies in places like universities, like hospitals, financial public institutions where the sensitive information is everywhere.

00:09:30:17 - 00:09:59:05 Unknown And normally, public cloud services mean that your data lives in a shared data center somewhere out there. But what happens if you can't risk that? Or what happens if regulations dictate that you must keep data in your own facility? That's where Exadata Cloud Customer provides an answer. So first of all, Exadata is Oracle's best database system. And it is a solution on its own.

00:09:59:07 - 00:10:27:23 Unknown It's a rack with database servers. The storage sells and switches for interconnection. But what makes it unique is that it provides ultra high performance. It provides optimized hardware and software and unique features that accelerate the Oracle database and the cloud. A customer or part of the name? It means that it is installed inside your data center, but it's managed like a cloud service.

00:10:28:01 - 00:11:00:11 Unknown Now for security. The setup is actually fantastic because you control the physical access since it's installed in your data center, so there's no need to trust an external data center. You control the network, access all the data is encrypted. And since it's a cloud service, it provides a way, a wide set of automation tools for managing, for example, the lifecycle of databases, the lifecycle of virtual machines, which help reduce that human error.

00:11:00:13 - 00:11:27:06 Unknown And Oracle handles the platform management, the infrastructure, things like patching, updating security in the underlying systems. But only you have the keys to your actual data. So basically actually the cloud customer solves that core tension. It gives you what would be cloud like ease and innovation without really sacrificing security and control. Well, all the information that you are giving us is super interesting and useful.

00:11:27:08 - 00:11:52:22 Unknown I think a common question people have is about data ownership. So with that, that is a cloud consumer who actually owns data and how is it managed? But actually this question has a really short answer. With Exadata Cloud, customer is the customer that owns the data 100% no ambiguity. So Oracle operates the platform. One would be the infrastructure.

00:11:53:00 - 00:12:14:10 Unknown Meaning that we make sure that the infrastructure works well, that it stays secure. It gets the latest patches, gets the faulty parts replaced and so on. But we cannot see or touch or use your data unless you explicitly grant permission. There is, there is a very strict rule separation between what Oracle manages and what the customer manages.

00:12:14:12 - 00:12:44:13 Unknown So Oracle manages what we call the Dom zero or domain zero, which consists of the hardware. So the database servers, the storage cells, the switches, the control plane servers, the firmware, the PDAs, the hypervisor and so on. And the customer manages the Dom, you the domain user, which consists of the virtual machine guests, the databases they create, the infrastructure, the operating system of the virtual machines, encryption keys and the data itself.

00:12:44:15 - 00:13:13:01 Unknown So basically everything that sits on top of the hypervisor is what the customer manages. And the management of the infrastructure from Oracle side happens through secure tunnels and through Rest APIs. And the customer gets dashboards, it gets controls, automation tools to help them manage that database and virtual machine lifecycle tasks. And when I say lifecycle, I mean like creation, deletion, backup, restore, replication, patching and so on.

00:13:13:03 - 00:13:38:15 Unknown And as a customer, you can also control the access permissions, the performance tuning and so on. And even when Oracle needs to do maintenance, we make sure to do it in a way that follows a strict security rules. So Sylvia, we are getting to the end of the podcast. So to wrap up things, what a piece of we had a bit I'm going to repeat.

00:13:38:17 - 00:14:06:01 Unknown So Sylvia, we are going to we multimedia. So Sylvia, we are getting to the end of the podcast. So to wrap up things. What piece of advice would you give to students and faculty when it comes to handle data security in their daily lives? Well, my advice is simple just to start seeing yourself as a guardian of information, not just a new, user.

00:14:06:03 - 00:14:41:00 Unknown Because in today's world, everyone is connected to critical data. So you you have to trade the information that you handle like you will treat a secret that matters to the world. And some practical tips around it. Well, always use strong passwords, unique passwords. Do not click links or open attachments from sources that you don't completely trust. When you are working with sensitive material, make sure that you're using organization approved platforms, secure platforms, and not just whatever is easiest.

00:14:41:02 - 00:15:08:14 Unknown And I think the most important is just to stay curious about cyber security, because it's changing constantly. And being informed even a little bit makes you so much safer. Because data, good data security isn't about being paranoid, but it's about being prepared. And if you make these habits a part of your everyday thinking, you're setting yourself up there to be not just a safe user, but also a safe citizen in the digital world.

00:15:08:16 - 00:15:40:01 Unknown Well, that's some excellent advice. Sylvia Thank you for joining me in today's episode of the podcast. If you would like to learn more about Oracle Academy, be sure to check out our website and subscribe to the podcast to stay up to date with our latest episodes. Thanks for listening. That wraps up this episode. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for the next Oracle Academy Tech Chat podcast.