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Preparing SQL Server Database For Profiling and Masking

Before masking your data, it is important to prepare your database. This section explains the required changes, reasons for the change, and the instructions to make the change.

Logging

What is Simple Recovery Model?

SQL Database Simple Recovery model - Automatically reclaims log space to keep space requirements small, essentially eliminating the need to manage the transaction log space. Operations that require transaction log backups are not supported by the simple recovery model.

Why is it important to make this change?

Reducing the overhead of the transaction logging and the size of the files before checkpoints increases the masking speed significantly.

How exactly do I make this change?

Either (a) use SQL Server Management Studio to open the DB properties dialog box and select the “simple recovery model” or (b) issue the SET RECOVERY SIMPLE statement from a SQL query tool. Please see this reference for more details.

DB/VDB Memory Allocation

What is min/max memory in SQL Server?

Memory is allocated at the SQL Server level, so all the DBs will share the entire load. The max memory should be close to the maximum available on the server.

Why is it important to make this change?

To assure that masking jobs will perform at an optimum level.

How exactly do I make this change?

Use SQL Server Management Studio and change the max memory allocation for the server.

Primary/Foreign/DMS_ROW_ID Keys

What is a key?

A key is a unique, non-null value that identifies a row in the database.

Why is it important to make this change?

Using a PK or Foreign key is critical for fast updates. When a table does not have an identity column with an index or a PK/FK then the masking engine will alter the table to have an Identity column, DMS_ROW_ID to optimize performance.

How exactly do I make this change?

A logical key can be added to a table in the Masking Engine Ruleset for each table, if there is a specific column that would find the row to update faster than the current PK/FK.

Creating a Masking User and Privileges

It is highly recommended to create a database user, and possibly a role, for use by the Masking Engine. This user should be created in a non-Production environment and not in your production environment. The following permissions are needed:

  • db_datareader

  • db_datawriter

  • db_ddladmin

SQL commands to add a user with the required privileges:

USE [mask_db]

GO

CREATE LOGIN [mask_user] WITH PASSWORD=N'delphix123'

GO

CREATE USER [mask_user] FOR LOGIN [mask_user]

GO

USE [mask_db]

GO

ALTER ROLE [db_datareader] ADD MEMBER [mask_user]

GO

USE [mask_db]

GO

ALTER ROLE [db_datawriter] ADD MEMBER [mask_user]

GO

USE [mask_db]

GO

ALTER ROLE [db_ddladmin] ADD MEMBER [mask_user]

GO