Managing and Protecting

Transcription

1 Managing and Protecting Test Data in Cloud Environments WHITE PAPER BROUGHT TO YOU BY SKYTAP & AXIS TECHNOLOGY, LLC

2 2 Managing and Protecting Test Data in Cloud Environments The benefits that cloud computing provide to innovative enterprises have increased year after year, yet some are still hesitant to leverage the cloud s power. Many companies have yet to embrace testing in the cloud because of risks of data integrity, security concerns, and the assumed inability to remain compliant with numerous regulations. These concerns are not unfounded; security breaches and the exposure of private information result in negative press and guaranteed losses of credibility, fines, and a negative impact on future business. Organizations are under pressure and tasked with increasing software release velocity and reducing defects while ensuring that all of their client s data is secure. Today s successful enterprises need to know where their sensitive data resides and can guarantee this data will remain protected. But just because your data, or that of your customers is remaining on-premise, doesn t guarantee compliance, as testers that are using or cloning production data are potentially going outside of control access rights or violating any number of privacy or regulatory standards. In an attempt to limit the risk of exposing sensitive information, some testers or database administrators are tasked with manually mocking test data. Not only does this still risk failing to remain compliant, manual test data mocks are incredibly time consuming, and the effort often results in inaccurate, unscalable datasets that do little to ensure software quality through testing. Another area where manual test data mocks fail is in their difficulty, if not inability to maintain relevance and meaningfulness across numerous tables and databases. As test data makes its way through the SDLC, it must be more than testable, but also consistent, and relevant across

3 3 Managing and Protecting Test Data in Cloud Environments any number of scenarios. Gender, geo-locations, birthdates, and personal names, if changed from one database to the next, immediately decrease the quality of testing efforts, and therefore the software as a whole. So, what do enterprises need to solve these issues? We know we must absolutely protect the data of ourselves, and that of our customers in order to remain in compliance with regulations like HIPAA, PCI, PII, and HR information. This means that moving production data to the cloud for testing purposes is not possible, and manual data mocking efforts are time consuming, prone to human error, and the resulting datasets do not mimic what is found in production. The Solution: Data Masking 2.0 First, production data should be masked, completely on-premise, so that it never enters the cloud. Secondly, this data must be masked intelligently so that it remains realistic, relevant, and consistent across multiple tables and databases so that more complete testing can be performed. Masked test data must be fictitious, yet referentially intact, meaningful, non-repeating, and it must keep the state of the information so that regression and functional testing can be performed. Taking data masking to the next level means not just hiding production data, but also replacing it with depersonalized test data that looks and feels just like the real thing, even as it hops between different services and databases in a multi-tier environment, so that more complete and continuous testing can be performed. In order to achieve this level of production data security, and test data relevancy, a number of steps must be completed. First, your masking tool should point and then go through a profiling exercise to better understand your data, and to identify any areas at risk. Once it has been profiled, you should be given the ability to choose which data should be masked and/or de-identified, and as was stated earlier this masking must be able to be done on-premise, in your existing production environments.

4 4 Managing and Protecting Test Data in Cloud Environments Introducing Axis Technology DMsuite with Skytap Environments-as-a-Service Axis Technology has been in the business of masking sensitive data for some of the world s largest institutions for more than ten years, with a proven, industry-leading automated software product known as DMsuite to tackle each challenge listed above, including the ability to mask unstructured data. Live - Production QA Testing Masked Data UAT Testing DMZ DMsuite sits in the customer environment, masks data in memory and provisions masked data to the dev/test cloud environment. Skytap environments spin up with fictitious but realistic test data to allow productivity without the risk of unauthorized data exposure.

5 5 Managing and Protecting Test Data in Cloud Environments In order to maintain the highest level of security, DMsuite performs these tasks completely in memory, without creating any copies, storing on a masking server, or leaving behind any data residue. Your relevant, intelligently masked test data then remains consistent throughout the entire data stream, to match the very first context. DMsuite recently went even further to provide even greater test coverage in the cloud. Now that Axis Technology works with Skytap Environments-as-a-Service (EaaS), together we re able to provide a secure and productive cloud environment for all software dev/test teams. DMsuite and Skytap EaaS combine to provide teams with a virtual, dynamic, and secure environment to speed up software development and testing in the cloud without sacrificing quality or safety. Utilizing the DMsuite technology and its patented algorithms, there is no coding required to either find sensitive data on your databases, nor to mask it so that it is referentially intact across all agile environments, physical databases, and files. All of your masked data maintains the state and format of the original data so that all test cases can be thoroughly executed in sequence. And once DMsuite has completed the masking process, this new, relevant test data can be automatically pushed to Skytap, and into the correct environments so that functional, unit, and integration tests can seamlessly begin. Leveraging DMsuite speeds up code to market 10x faster than competing data masking products to provide maximum benefits for business areas in the shortest possible time. Then, utilizing that data in Skytap s cloud-based dev and test environments allows enterprises to accelerate the SDLC even further by shifting left with earlier, repeatable testing at every phase. Defects are found and eliminated sooner, making continuous integration, delivery, and deployment more attainable across a number of production environments. Leveraging DMsuite speeds up code to market 10x faster than competing data masking products

6 6 Managing and Protecting Test Data in Cloud Environments Conclusion Protecting sensitive data isn t simply a good idea or a best practice. In most cases, it is absolutely imperative to protect data from any unauthorized use in order to maintain compliance with federal laws and government or industry-wide regulations. While many organizations have known this for a long time, the solution no longer requires the manual and shortsighted procedures of the past. By providing fully automated, secure, on-premise data masking, and then shifting that data to on-demand cloud environments, DMsuite and Skytap allow for greater agility and the continuous testing of better software. Contact us today to learn more about how DMsuite and Skytap can help software development and test teams manage and protect data in the cloud so that enterprises can deliver better software, faster. Skytap, Inc nd Ave, Suite 300 Seattle, WA USA Toll Free: SKY-TAP8 ( ) sales@skytap.com Axis Technology, LLC 70 Federal St, Boston, MA USA P: (646) sales@axisdmsuite.com