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Question1
Command System activity report (sar)

The sar command is defined to have the general task of collecting, reporting or rather saving the information resulted from the system activities. The sar command initiates the writing onto the standard data/ information output the selected information regarding a cumulative activity counter performed in the operating system. The command is applicable in the sense of displaying the reports according to the duration that the system takes in writing the information. In the accounting system, the values can be outlined in count and the interval parameters and in this case the system will write the information depending on the intervals in seconds’ time. When the interval parameter is set at zero, then the sar command will only display the average statistics for the duration from the time the system was started. On the other hand the system interval parameter is defined and specified in absence of a count parameter then the sar command will generate reports continuously. Sar command is used for real time monitoring of the linux system performance in statistics (Prasad, 2014. The sar command is also applicable in collecting and storing information upon analysis bottlenecks are easily identified (Nataraj, 2011).

The Unix “Who” command

The who command is very useful for the display and printing of the information that related to the end users of the systems that are currently logged in the system. The who commands is executed for a duration of approximately 5 minutes and in the displays it displays the following information. the list of the users logged in the system, the time of the last boot, a list of dead processes, the list of login processes, counting of the login names and generally displaying the information of the logged on end users. The purpose of the who command is to display the end users logged on the systems. if person bypasses the server you can use the command to determined the persons that logged on your server (Gite, 2014).

Question 2A
Cumulative statistics
The cumulative statistics is described under cumulative probability and the cumulative frequency as well. The cumulative frequency defines the number of observations made that lies either above or below the particular value defined in the data set. And it is achieved or rather calculated by the use of the frequency distribution table.teh cumulative frequency is the same as the cumulative percentages though the percentage is advantaged with the power of easily comparing the sets of data. The cumulative probability is described as the probability that describes the value within a random variable will tend to fall within a specified value range.

Database metrics
Database metrics describes the activities undertaken about monitoring the performance of the database. The performance metrics are applied in the assessment of the health of the enterprise database. The metrics can focus on eth business transactions, the query performance, user and query conflicts, the capacity, configuration and the NoSQL databases (Habib, 2015). At times, the metrics are defined as long-term o average and they include the throughput, execution time, the concurrency and utilization.

Question 2B
Automatic workload capture feature
The workloads capture module s quite applicable in the monitoring of the external users activities and related transactions. The feature facilitates monitoring by recording the entire requests made by the database external users to the Oracle database. Once the feature is enabled, all the request done by the external users are redirected and stored in the capture files and this will facilitate the tracking of the transaction done by the external users. The capture files stores the information of SQL text, the bind values and the transaction information (Oracle, n.d).

Automatic performance diagnostic feature
The feature is applied when a problem is felt to have occurred within the database and thus the necessity of performing accurate and timely diagnosis of the developed problem before any measure of making changes.Teh automatic database diagnostic monitor undertakes an analysis of a top down series with the prior identification of the symptoms and then refining the symptoms until the cause of the performance problem is determined.

Key characteristics of a whistleblower
The verb whistle-blowing refers to revealing the hidden actions of another individual or groups of people (mostly executives) of a company for wrong actions they perpetrate in the dark. A whistleblower is thus any person who exposes any information regarding illegal activity dishonesty, or correct activities within an organization. In many cases, whistleblowers are employees or ex-employee of a company (Green, 2004).. Among the essential characteristics of whistleblowers is that they are altruistically motivated. They do their actions to expose the truth so that a person suffering unfairly may get saved. Secondly, they are utilitarian. They serve to be useful rather than attractive. Thirdly, they are not interested in altering their behavior. They do what they do because they believe it’s the appropriate course. They, therefore, allow their attitudes and beliefs to drive them. In many cases, whistleblowers are well educated as only people with such wisdom can manage what they do. They are also aware that what they do is prone to danger and severe retaliation (Green, 2004).

Instance of whistleblowing
On the 11th of March 2016, two former students of Bard College revealed that the college officials were violating the False Claims Act that regards the federal grants and that which stipulates the use of Title IV student aid funds. These two whistleblowers had researched and found that Bard has for long received funds through the Teacher Quality Partnership Grant Program though they the college has not yet complied with the conditions of such grant. Bard was also allegedly reported to be awarding, disbursing and receiving Title IV student loan funds at campus locations though such were not yet recognized. They also did so without providing notice of the locations to the Department of Education. Such actions showed an infringement of applicable regulations and agreement with the Department of Education. The case is still not solved and until the Court decides the fate of the culprits, the effect of the whistle-blowing to the whistleblower and the institution’s heads may not be determined. However, the prospective effects might be the jailing or fining of the Bard College heads. More so, the court might decide to demote them. The whistleblower might face threats from those persons that they exposed (Newman 2016).

Justification of the whistleblowers’ reporting

In any case, the actions of the whistleblowers were justified. Any publically traded company or any government institution represents is there to serve the people rather than inflict pain or take the public’s money without their consent. The government takes a lot of taxes from the public which it uses to pay for the services of workers of public institutions. It is thus wrong for these few individuals to grab or siphon the money once more from the public funds. As a matter of facts, it’s only the whistleblowers who might find out such actions as perpetrators do it hidden. Their actions were thus justified as they saved the public from continued fraudulence (Green, 2004).

Extent to which the whistleblower would be protected under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was developed and passed by the U.S. Congress to guard shareholders as well as the general public from such things like accounting errors and fraudulent practices. It was also aimed at improving the accuracy of commercial disclosures (Green, 2004). Section 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act would protect the whistleblowers against harm by the Bard’s heads for providing information about financial fraud. However, the two had to show that an actual violation occurred. It would then protect them against retaliatory actions such as threats or discrimination.