A classification process defines
a job consisting of a classification
policy and one or more datasources.
Any classification process can be run on an ad-hoc basis. If a datasource
referenced by that process has not stored login information, you will
be prompted to supply the necessary login parameters. If login information
has been stored for all datasources used in a classification process,
that process can be included as a classification task in a compliance
workflow automation process, which can be run on an on-demand or scheduled
basis (see Compliance Workflow
Automation).
How the Classification Process Works
When a classification process runs, it should have very little impact
on the database server.
To prevent overloading the server when scanning data, the classification
process always samples the database, never reading more than 1,000 rows.
It begins by scanning sets of 50 consecutive rows returned by the database
server, beginning with the first row. The second set of 50 begins with
the 1000th row. Thereafter, it skips ahead by powers or two, such that
the next block of 50 begins 2K, 4K, 8K, 16K, 32K, and so forth. During
this process, if any query takes longer than 10 seconds, the skip interval
is multiplied by 10, so if the current sequence is 640K, the next will
be 6.4M, and so forth (until 1,000 rows have been sampled or there are
no more rows in the table). If the row limit on the Search for Data rule
is set higher than 1000, the same sampling technique will be used. Unless
the table is quite large (greater than 262,144,000 rows), the sampling
process will run out of rows before the maximum row limit is exceeded.
The Classifier also throttles itself to periodically idle so that it
does not overwhelm the database server with requests.
If any one query takes longer than 12 minutes, the query will be cancelled,
a message logged, and no more data will be sampled for that table. If
any rows were acquired while sampling, they will be used to evaluate the
rule for that table. This usually only happens on servers that are experiencing
performance problems in general.
If, for some reason, an operation on the Processor takes over approximately
30 minutes, the entire process will be halted, a message will be logged
with the process statistics, and the next Classification Process will
be started.
In general, if there are many rules that are sampling data, the load
on the database server should remain constant, but the process may take
additional time to run.
Do one of the following to open the Classification Process
Finder:
Click New to
open the Define Classification Process panel.
Enter a name for the process in the Process
Description box.
Select a Classification
Policy from the list.
Click the Add Datasource
button to add one or more datasources. See Datasources
in the Common Tools book for information about using and defining datasources.
Click the Save
button. This completes the definition of the classification process.
Optionally add comments to the definition. See Comments.
Optionally add security roles. See Security
Roles.
Optionally submit the classification process for execution.
See Run
a Classification Process, below.
Click the Done
button when you are finished.
There are two ways to run a classification process:
Do one of the following to open the Classification Process
Finder:
Select the process to run, and click Modify
to open the Classification Process Builder.
Click the Run Once
Now button to submit the job. This places the process on the Classifier/Assessment
Job Queue, from which the appliance runs a single job at a time. Administrators
can view the job status by selecting Guardium Monitor > Cls/Asmt Job
Queue. See View the Classifier/Assessment Job Queue, below
Click the Done
button when you are finished.
Do one of the following to open the Classification Process
Finder:
Select the process that created the results to be viewed,
and click Modify to open the Classification
Process Builder.
Click the View Results
button. The results will open in a separate window.
On any row of the Process Run Log, click 
(details) to display more information.
Click Close this window
when you are done viewing the results.
The Classifier/Assessment Job Queue is available from the administrator
portal only.
To view the report, select Guardium Monitor > Cls/Asmt Job Queue
to open the Classifier/Assessment Job Queue panel.