Secure test data
Create test data without production data
Challenges
A part of the deprecation function in protecting sensitive data is the assessment and avoidance of using insecure production data for testing. Realistic, but not real, test data are a necessity for:
Application load and range testing
Outsourced software development
Simulation of databases and their applications
Hardware and Software Benchmarking
Sharing custom file and report formats
Very often, those who need test data simply replicate the production database or use excerpts from real production files. Both are inherently risky, as they can expose sensitive and private data. This may not even be possible if the production data is unavailable or does not yet exist.
In the meantime, generating useful and secure test data can be difficult for a variety of reasons:
It can be difficult to mask real data for testing purposes.
Integrity constraints cannot simply be met.
Existing fake data is in the wrong layout.
The data must be filtered and transformed.
Complex test data generators are hard to write.
Most commercial tools are slow or difficult to use.
Solutions
You can now recommend and use a tool that easily generates secure and referential integrity-free test data in production database and file formats without needing production data. Specifically, the test data generation package synthesizes RowGen from IRI realistic Test data in the same table, report, and production file formats that you need to load or send outside the firewall.
Any number, size, type, or position of fields, records, or files can be specified in a single job script and I/O pass. Various selection and range criteria—as well as data transformations—can be applied to prototype and stress testing applications.
With IRI RowGen You can simulate sensitive database and file data and assure risk management that the test data is secure. RowGen’s logging and audit functions are also available to help you verify compliance with data protection regulations.
Common metadata
The SortCL-program in the IRI CoSort Package or the IRI Voracity The platform defines and manipulates production data using the same metadata that RowGen used for the specification of test data.