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Before you start
Part 1 of this series introduced both Informix Dynamic Server and Optim. It showed how to configure the IDS server and IDS client for Optim on both the Microsoft® Windows® and the Linux® (or UNIX®) environments. In addition, it stepped you through the configuration of Optim, setting up the Optim directory and DB alias.
In this tutorial, follow scenarios to understand how you can use the Optim functionality to mask test data and maintain privacy.
Optim Data Privacy Solution with IDS
As we become a smarter planet, organizations are going paperless and relying heavily on computers to store their client data. Hence data governance becomes a very critical process for business success. There are laws related to safeguarding the data privacy of critical client data since (along with customer loyalty and trust) revenue of millions of dollars can be at stake.
One of the major environments where data breaches can happen is the testing environment. Optim provides powerful data transformation capabilities to mask or convert certain personal information so that confidential data can be made available for application testing.
This tutorial covers some of the transformation library functions
delivered by Optim to convert critical information such as Social
Security number (TRANS SSN), credit card
number (TRANS CCN), and e-mail IDs
(TRANS EML). There are several other
functions available in Optim in the data privacy area that provide
various masking functions. For example, some of the functions
include:
LOOKUP, a function that uses a lookup table to determine the destination column valueHASH_LOOKUP, a function that determines the destination column value from a lookup table according to a value derived from a source columnRAND_LOOKUP, a random lookup function that selects a value for the destination column from a lookup table based on a random number as the subscript in the lookup table
Consider an example of a government system that provides special benefits to certain citizens based on their annual income. The job of gathering the required data for these citizens is outsourced, and the application processing the data accepts data from various organizations and puts it in an IDS database. The application testing team has access to all the confidential data for these citizens, including their Social Security numbers, e-mail IDs, credit card numbers, annual income, and so on.
In the following tutorial sections, see how various
TRANS functions can be used in a convert
request to generate masked data that has the same appearance and
behavior as the original data, fits into the context of the original
data, meets the application logic, and serves the purpose of
maintaining citizen privacy.
This tutorial assumes you have the following already installed and configured after following the instructions in Part 1:
- Informix Dynamic Server 11.50xC5
- Informix CSDK 3.50xC5
- Optim products:
- IBM Optim Data Growth Solution 7.1.1
- IBM Optim Test Data Management Solution 7.1.1
- IBM Optim Data Privacy Solution 7.1.1
In all the scenarios mentioned in this tutorial, the Informix CSDK must reside on the same machine with the Optim server, irrespective of where the IDS Server resides.
