Skip to main content
Question

Mask/Sanitize Development database


durette
Superhero (Customer)
Forum|alt.badge.img+19
  • Superhero (Customer)
  • 525 replies

We’re working through a Cloud upgrade with a remote deployment. I’m running into a lot of performance issues, and I’d like to explore using different antimalware solutions, different public clouds, and different on-prem hardware. Whenever I copy our production database somewhere, though, it creates a significant business risk, so I need a full-sized copy of our system that has been made safe enough to use for this exploratory purpose.

 

I need to mask or sanitize our entire database to reduce or eliminate the risk of our business data getting compromised.

 

Question 1: Has anyone scrubbed a database like this? How did you do it?

 

There’s a pack available for Oracle Database Enterprise Edition called the Data Masking and Subsetting Pack. I saw that it needs to be licensed for the source database, or in this case our PROD 9 database.

 

Question 2: Does this pack need to be licensed for every user or just the IT users who are working in the sanitized environment?

 

Even if I can manage to mask all the fields myself, I’d have to mask both sides of each referential integrity constraint. This isn’t so bad for well-behaved fields that are just keys, but the system includes several columns like KEY_REF and KEY_VALUE that would need to be remapped as well.

 

Question 3: If you’ve done this before, how did you mask partial column values? If you’ve used the Oracle pack to do this, did it cover partial keys?

5 replies

durette
Superhero (Customer)
Forum|alt.badge.img+19
  • Author
  • Superhero (Customer)
  • 525 replies
  • May 26, 2023

Our system has over 100K columns and 6K tables, and the Oracle EE pack would require a prohibitive amount of data entry into Enterprise Manager.
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH19PdNe8iE

 


durette
Superhero (Customer)
Forum|alt.badge.img+19
  • Author
  • Superhero (Customer)
  • 525 replies
  • January 24, 2025

I still have this need. Does anyone have any ideas?


Forum|alt.badge.img+10
  • Hero (Customer)
  • 118 replies
  • January 26, 2025

Hello, 

have you tried running IFS anonymus functionality on a temprory environnement Then copying the database ?

 

 


durette
Superhero (Customer)
Forum|alt.badge.img+19
  • Author
  • Superhero (Customer)
  • 525 replies
  • March 10, 2025
IFSRUNINNOVAL wrote:

Hello, 

have you tried running IFS anonymus functionality on a temprory environnement Then copying the database ?

 

 

I don’t understand. The IFS anonymous user does not anonymize the content of the database. Could you please provide more detail to explain what you mean?


Forum|alt.badge.img+10
  • Hero (Customer)
  • 118 replies
  • March 19, 2025

@durette  : My apologies. I have now thoroughly read your post. My solution will only work if you are targeting personal information. IFS provides a tool for anonymizing personal data.

The idea is to run the process on an intermediate database then copying it or on the final database before authorizing access

 

Data subject to anonymize : 

 

Eligible data : 

 


Reply


Cookie policy

We use cookies to enhance and personalize your experience. If you accept you agree to our full cookie policy. Learn more about our cookies.

 
Cookie settings