DEVOPSdigest

Redgate announced the launch of Redgate Test Data Manager(link is external), which simplifies the challenges that come with Test Data Management (TDM) and modern software development across multiple databases.

WEBINAR NOV 29: Redgate Product Launch: Transform your software delivery with Test Data Management(link is external)

Using an ingeniously simple approach, it enables any organization to introduce reliable and compliant test data delivery to its development process, improving the quality of releases and reducing risk, while slotting seamlessly into their existing workflows.

In literally seconds, Redgate Test Data Manager performs classification, masking, subsetting and cloning by automatically discovering and classifying the data in a SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL or Oracle database and masking the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) it contains. It then produces a copy or clone a fraction the size of the original using virtualization technology and makes it available to developers for use in development and testing.

By doing so, it eliminates time-consuming, manual processes which reduce efficiency and avoids developer downtime, giving developers the ability to self-serve the data they need in seconds. Importantly, it also prevents unrepresentative data causing failed deployments, and replaces limited control over data access and usage with a repeatable, robust, auditable and secure process.

David Gummer, Redgate Chief Product Officer, comments: “Provisioning test data can be a difficult balancing act. On one side are DBAs and others involved in data operations who are concerned about space restrictions and keeping data safe. On the other side are developers who want quick access to good, representative data. Redgate Test Data Manager resolves that with a beautifully elegant and simple solution.”

Flexible, End-to-End Workflows

The provisioning of database copies for TDM has traditionally been a laborious task with DBAs needing approval for infrastructure changes to create dedicated test environments for developers, and manually masking data or replacing it with limited data sets. This often results in developers having to use shared development and test environments, and waiting for hours for refreshed copies to be provisioned.

The worrying alternatives for some companies are using unprotected production data, replacing it with unrealistic anonymous data, or not testing at all. This opens the door to a data breach, results in failed releases because the data is not representative of the original, or makes every release a risk-prone, uncertain process.

This is where Redgate Test Data Manager comes into its own by meeting the increasing efficiency, quality and security requirements of DBAs and other data professionals, while also enabling end-to-end provisioning of masked database copies. Importantly, those copies save up to 99% of disk space and can be self-served by developers in seconds to enable reliable and fast development and testing.

Easy to Use GUI or CLI

Redgate Test Data Manager has been designed, from the ground up, to optimize every aspect of TDM, and address the challenges DBAs and developers face every day across the four most popular databases. By automating data classification, masking and test data provisioning, it enables developers to self-serve database copies when they need them, the moment they need them.

It has also been developed to fit in with the way DBAs as well as developers work. For those who prefer the configurability of the IDE they normally work with, it offers a Command Line Interface (CLI) to automate the TDM process and bring the capabilities into their existing CI/CD pipeline. For those who want to visually manage and orchestrate the whole end-to-end process, a unified interface gets users up and running quickly and easily.

Powered by the Database DevOps Experts

For the last two decades and more, Redgate has been researching how database development can be included as a natural partner in advanced software development practices like DevOps. It now offers a full suite of database DevOps products to enable enterprises to release value to customers faster while keeping data safe.

David Gummer concludes: “Redgate Test Data Manager is a distillation of all of our knowledge, experience and deep understanding. It isn’t just a new solution, it’s a new way of looking at how database classification, masking, subsetting, data generation, cloning and provisioning can be integrated into one end-to-end process.”