Production & Test Database

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1

Hi All,

I would like to understand the concept of data transfer between production and test environment. Means, the how production data is taken to test environment, do we use any ADABAS utility to achieve the same or we run JCLs/scripts etc on perticular schedule?

Also, suppose we don’t transfer entire production data but a few, is it possible to mask the data in between so that transfered production data cannot be viewed?

I don’t work on DBA side but still curios to know. Please help.

2

Hi Ats,

You can use Adabas utilities and/or programs and/or other means to refresh your QA data from production. This is more a policy question for your shop to answer than a technical issue, as the technology exists to support whatever your shop decides to do.

Most shops I know of might refresh some of the files but not all in order to keep a handle on the size of the QA database. Transactional files may either be excluded or have some kind of filtering to reduce the impact.

One shop I know of has an elaborate menu-driven system for users to select production data for extraction from production and loading into QA if you have the time to develop such a system.

3

Hi Brian,

Thanks for your note.

Is ADABAS capable to mask data while loading it to QA?

4

Hi Ats,

I think it is more common to mask the data while unloading it, i.e. when extracting it via a program or via the utilitly ADAULD you might select the data for QA. Depending on the amount of data extracted via program can be loaded via utility ADACMP/ADALOD.

Regards,
Uschi

5

Thanks Uschi.

To make it more specific, I want to know if we can mask data as follows:

e.g. for a field ACCT_NO = 1234567890 I would like to mask the value it to ACCT_NO = XXXXXXX90
I am not sure if ADABAS has this capability to do it (if has, not sure how) while loading/unloading data to QA.

Please throw some light on this, as I understand this type of masking need some algorythms and rules to be written.

6

There is a (non SAG) utility on the market called ADAREORG that can be used to assign values to all records between unloading and reloading.

7

Hi Ats,

We (Software AG) are currently in the process to offer a data masking tool that is integrated in Adabas and allows rule-based masking and sub-setting.

Regards,
Wolfgang

8

Hi Wolfgang,

When we are expecting this tool or is it available currently?