The test data management component of IBM® Optim™ extracts,
copies, and moves sets of relationally intact data from multiple source
tables to corresponding destination tables. The test data management
component handles an arbitrarily complex data model consisting of
any number of tables and relationships and ensures a referentially
intact set of data for use in application testing, data migration,
and date aging.
You can manage test data from two environments, Optim for distributed platforms and Optim Designer.
- Optim for distributed platforms
provides everything you need to create and manage relationally intact
test data from databases with any number of tables, interconnected
with any number of DBMS and application‑managed relationships, regardless
of their complexity.
- Optim Designer allows you
to extend Optim for distributed
platforms by managing test data using Optim interoperability
services. Use the Optim Manager
environment to manage and process these services. You can also use
an Optim directory to import
and export Optim definitions.
Use Optim Designer to create Optim interoperability services
that include requests for extracting, inserting, loading, and converting
data.
The test data management component is indispensable
for the following purposes:
- Creating test databases that are relationally intact
subsets of an existing production database.
- Migrating subsets of data that require data transformations
as part of the migration. This feature is especially useful for masking
data used in testing applications or to introduce altered data to
the production database.
- Aging all types of date columns, regardless of initial
format, and adjusting the resulting dates to suit site-specific business
rules. An extensive set of sample definitions to handle these business
rules is distributed with the test data management component. Definitions
can be customized to accommodate organization-specific business rules.
The test data management component is easy to use,
simple in concept, yet powerful in supporting complex database structures.
Intuitive dialogs simplify data entry tasks and provide data options
for extracting relationally intact sets of data. Intelligent window
handling technology allows you to display multiple dialogs, pop-up
windows, context sensitive online help, and tutorials.