It did all that while maintaining access to data and keeping data retention policies compliant by country.

We had 32 sets of books running in one instance of Oracle several years ago. You can imagine how fast data was collecting -- and we do business in 29 different countries, each with its own retention requirements. We turned to archiving to get our database down to a useable size.

We want an XML format so that we can get rid of the 40 or so instances of files from different software releases. We don't want to be application-dependent when databases get too old.

Our database is growing by a substantial amount on a daily basis. We cannot keep 10 or 15 years of data in our production environment, but because we have to meet the legal requirements of 27 different countries, I have to maintain data and make sure it's accessible for a certain period of time to meet local statutory requirements.

These (soldiers) are trying . . . to do their best for their country. They know (the graft is) going on, and they're powerless to do anything about it.

With 3 percent of the world's resources and 25 percent of the world's demand, it is pretty obvious this country cannot drill its way to energy security.