Stored Procedures Is a group of one or more transact SQL statements that form a single logical unit and are stored as an object in the database? Stored procedures are useful for a number of reasons. First of all, they can massively increase performance. That’s because a stored procedure is cached on the server, and also because fewer calls are made to the database. Imagine you have an application that performs a rather complex task wherein multiple transact SQL statements are sent to the database and multiple result sets are…

Functions A database function is a transact-SQL routine that accepts parameters, performs an action, and returns the result of that action as a value. In SQL Server, we have numerous built-in functions at our disposal. These functions are referred to as “system-defined functions.” Depending on the behavior of the functions, we can further categories them into scalar functions and aggregate functions. Scalar functions are functions that can accept one or more parameters and always return a single value. Aggregate functions, which we’ve already covered, are pretty similar to scalar functions….

Introduction to Databases A database is an organized collection of logically interrelated data. By “data,” we mean known facts that can be recorded. For example, data about the customers of a company, sales the company makes, or products a company sells Nowadays, databases are used almost everywhere. If we look at any type of application software, there’s usually a data access layer responsible for retrieving and modifying data in a so-called back-end database. These applications usually have a number of users or clients who need access to that database. This…

Content Filtering Welcome back. Let’s now talk about the third UTM feature known as content filtering. Content filtering provides a simple mechanism to control file transfer across the firewall. It allows you to block or permit certain types of traffic based on mime type, file extension, and protocol command. We spoke about mime types in an earlier lecture. Mime stands for “multipurpose internet mail extensions.” In simple words, it denotes the media type. It identifies the type and format of the document or file. Examples include application, image, audio, video,…

Introduction to UTM Welcome back. Let’s now talk about the next topic, which is UTM, or unified threat management. This is a very simple topic. There’s not much depth in terms of the concepts, but still, it’s a very interesting topic. So let’s talk about it. Unified Threat Management is a collection of security features and services to protect users from security threats. The services include antivirus, antispam, content filtering, and web filtering. What makes Utes so easy to use is that all features or services are provided on a…

Interface Address Configuration Let’s now talk about interface address configuration. We’ll understand how to configure IP addresses on an interface. Let’s get to Juno’s terminal and see this live in action. All right, I’m here at Juno’s terminal, and as you can see, I’ve already logged in. I’ll use the CLI command to navigate to operational mode. We’ll begin with the command “show interfaces.” This is the command that can be used to view summarized information about all the interfaces on the SRX device. The show interface is terse. The…

Introduction to SRX Series Devices Hello and welcome. Let’s begin our discussion on Juniper security with a brief introduction to the SRX series devices. The SRX series devices are high-performance devices with security, routing, and networking capabilities. In fact, it might be interesting for you to know that SRX stands for security, routing, and switching. The SRX abbreviation stands for switching. So the SRX series devices provide security, routing, and switching capabilities. In this course, we are going to primarily focus on the security capabilities of the SRX device, which…

Introduction to Juniper ATP Cloud Welcome back. Let’s now talk about the next topic, which is Juniper ATP Cloud, also known as Juniper Advanced Threat Protection and also known as Juniper Sky ATP. So, what exactly is Juniper ATP? Well, it’s a framework to protect your hosts against security threats. So it’s a collection of methods and techniques that can be deployed to protect your devices against threats. It is a cloud-based threat detection software that integrates with your SRX firewalls. It checks both inbound and outbound traffic for threats….

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Welcome back. Let’s now shift our attention to another topic called intrusion detection and prevention, also known as IDP. So IDP is the process of monitoring and analysing network events for threats. IDP is responsible for identifying suspicious activities and stopping them. Now, in some of the earlier videos, we’ve spoken about some other prevention and filtering techniques, like applying screens or configuring security policies. So at this stage, you may wonder, if we already have those checks in place, why do we need another check…

Policy Rematch Let’s now talk about an interesting topic called policy rematch. Policy Rematch is a configuration on the SRX device that causes the revaluation of an active session when its associated security policy is modified. That means when the security policy associated with a session is modified, the session will remain open if it still matches the policy that allowed the session initially. But the session will close if the associated policy is renamed, deactivated, or deleted. In other words, if a policy initially allowed a session to be…