No More SOX

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No More SOX

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

SSC Guru

Points: 734434
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May 30, 2009 at 10:25 pm

#200992

Comments posted to this topic are about the item No More SOX

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Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1003857 More actions · Answer 1

SOX actually made my life a little easier. I no longer have to argue with a bunch of people about locking down the Production Servers. I no longer have to listen to interminable dribble and explain over and over about why I don't believe Developers should have anything other than Read Only access to the Production Servers, if that.

Now, I have a "3" word reason that they can't argue with. "It's the Law". Period. End of Story. Next problem please. And, oh yes, take your whiney hiney and your boss' gotta-have-it-now-'cause-I-dunno-how-to-write-a-schedule PITA attitude down the hall and put your cruddy, performance challenged, inaccurate, untested, POS code through a code review and some decent Unit and UAT Testing before you give it to me for promotion to Production. Make sure you have a backout plan, too, sonny. 😛

Truly Yours,

BSOFH on SOX steroids :hehe:

p.s. That goes for your bloody undocumented, just-as-performance-challenged GUI code, too! 😀

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1003857 More actions · Answer 2

Heh... sorry... I'm holding back... I should tell you how I really feel. 😉

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Tom Fischer SSC-Addicted Points: 409 More actions · Answer 3

Have to (strongly) agree with the ambiguous Mr. Moden. 🙂

One of the downsides of SOX that I’ve witnessed has been its casual interpretation to justify requests. For example, one manager used SOX to justify hiring another DBA. Another involved requesting hardware upgrades.

Mike Hinds SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4258 More actions · Answer 4

SOX gave us a start to prepare for what was to come. As mentioned by all above, we now have the law on our side when we ask for controls, and the time and materials to implement them.

The regional bank I work for was hit by eastern European hackers a year ago. SOX helped in two ways:

1) We were partially prepared for the intrusion, and as such the actual damage to customer data was limited. Law enforcement gave us a huge P/R boost in assuring our customers that we had been well prepared.

2) Many staff were prepared to respond quickly and appropriately, by having done many of the steps in lesser intensity over the last five years.

Mike Hinds Lead Database Administrator1st Source BankMCP, MCTS

Andrew..Peterson SSCertifiable Points: 6838 More actions · Answer 5

We do need SOX, but corporate executives hate it.

It limits their ability to softly manage their short term reported financials, and makes them responsible. In one of my past careers (I am a CPA) I audited the financials of many companies. If you remember the collapse of Enron and Arthur Andersen, I can tell you from firsthand knowledge that it was only a matter of time before a major accounting firm imploded.

The more you are prepared, the less you need it.

Someguy SSCrazy Points: 2207 More actions · Answer 6

This was an interesting editorial for me because prior to this I had only heard Sarbanne-Oxley critisized for the "Mark to Market" provisions. See link below as an example:

http://www.forbes.com/2008/09/29/mark-to-market-oped-cx_ng_0929gingrich.html

Apparently SOX is more complex than this single issue. Thanks for the enlightenment.

I haven't had time to read the whole act (and I don't feel too guilty about that - it seems most of Congress doesn't have time to read their own legislation nowadays). Might it be that it is a series of provisions that need to be considered individually? Perhaps those of you who have implemented applications in response to the act could further enlighten us...

___________________________________________________
“Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.”

HuggyBear Old Hand Points: 378 More actions · Answer 7

Glad to see from above the support for Internal Controls, certainly makes not only the DBAs life easier, but also, more importantly, the strength of an organisation's systems' integrity.

I went into detail on this already here, with an anecdote or two:

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/hugo/archive/2009/02/15/the-importance-of-the-segregation-of-duties-with-respect-to-internal-controls.aspx

Here in Canada, we have (aka C-SOX) Bill C-158 - unfortunately, most developers here have to be convinced that this is the law and not just 'overhead' to make their lives difficult.

[font="Verdana"]Town of Mount Royal, QC
SQL Server DBA since '99
MCDBA, MCITP, PMP, MVP '10, Azure Data Platform Data Engineer
hugo@intellabase.com [/font]
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qnyiGWyGvDz6Q2VtLPGEsRufy9CUqw-t/view (MCDBA 2001, data eng associate coming asap)

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 734434 More actions · Answer 8

Very interesting. I was expecting to see more complaints about SOX, but maybe I'm not out of touch as a DBA. This law definitely helps DBAS, or anyone that wants to better manage and control their environment, without such a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants attitude that used to predominate.

I guess the DBAs don't want this repealed.

Ken SSCoach Points: 17191 More actions · Answer 9

At my old company, data was managed very haphazardly and pretty much anyone could get access to systems internally if they asked the right people. SOX made us tighten down our systems, document our systems and actually come up with back up strategies which were barely there before. It actually required admins and dba's to learn the systems that they were working with better and in turn exposed a number of large potential issues that we might not have found before. After the first 2 years of SOX audits, it just became another yearly ritual for us, same as year end reporting and routine maintenance. One can imagine how many public companies might have fudged the numbers in today's economy if SOX wasn't a concern.

Ken SSCoach Points: 17191 More actions · Answer 10

Steve Jones - Editor (6/1/2009)
This law definitely helps DBAS, or anyone that wants to better manage and control their environment, without such a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants attitude that used to predominate.

That is the biggest benefit that I saw as part of IT. We managed most of our systems this way before SOX and it bit us a number of times. The number of late nights working to fix our own errors and shortcomings were reduced after we ensured that our backups actually worked. Our reporting also became much easier to manage knowing that the data was cleaner and more transparent. Audit trails = Good!

gmadytinos Grasshopper Points: 22 More actions · Answer 11

The need for SOX is in direct proportion to the amount of idiots (across all departments) who work at your company.

SOX, like any formal methodology is there to babysit people who can't think for themselves.

I think therefore, it has its place.

Ken SSCoach Points: 17191 More actions · Answer 12

I agree that it shouldn't be necessary but unfortunately a great number of the idiots are the ones managing the budgets and making the final calls. SOX has forced alot of these people to slow down and give more thought to how the data is managed instead of just trying to do everything as cheaply and quickly as possible.

Someguy SSCrazy Points: 2207 More actions · Answer 13

You know, I hate multiple-window browsers. The previous link I posted just brought you back to SQL Server Central. Sorry...

:blush:

I edited the previous post and I'm putting the corrected link here, too.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/09/29/mark-to-market-oped-cx_ng_0929gingrich.html

___________________________________________________
“Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.”

Red Cat Grasshopper Points: 19 More actions · Answer 14

WOW...so the fact that this one piece of legislation has been used by the accountants to musle arounf the entire US enterprise and lead to every decision on process improvement needing bounced off an auditor makes the majority of DBA's happy with it?

I am an Information Architect who not only works on DB design on a cross app basis...but I also have to work with the Business Analysts and end users on a continuous (more than daily) basis. I can tell you this single piece of handy work by the US congress has done more to hamstring our productivity than just about anything I can think of. It single handedly lowered our cost of business to from several points lower than anywhere else in the world, to higher than everywhere in the previously high cost regions of europe.

gesh...

-Red Cat