Discovering data by creating access definitions

Data discovery is a foundational capability of IBM® Optim Archive that enables users to identify and define the scope of data to be extracted from source systems, while uncovering relationships within your data tables. In IBM Optim Archive, data discovery is done by using access definitions.

Use access definitions to identify and define the scope of data to be extracted from source systems for use in your data workflows. By discovering and selecting relevant tables and relationships, you can build access definitions that serve as the blueprint for data extraction, subsetting, masking, and export operations.

Simply, an access definition is a set of instructions that defines a specific subset of related data to be processed. Each access definition is tied to a specific connection, and specifies the tables, relationships, and selection criteria to be used for IBM Optim Archive actions like archiving, restoring, extracting, or masking data.

When you define access definitions, you can select source tables, discover related tables, and configure optional parameters. Access definitions ensure consistent and accurate data extraction across your flows, and can be saved and reused for repeated data processing tasks. .

Discovering relationships between tables helps you to maintain data consistency. You can discover related tables or manually define them.