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Re: DATABASE LINKS

From: Ed prochak <ed.prochak_at_magicinterface.com>
Date: 17 Nov 2003 10:15:10 -0800
Message-ID: <4b5394b2.0311171015.1fac47a9@posting.google.com>


rosebernardo_at_yahoo.com (Rose) wrote in message news:<d200c71d.0311161701.4970a35_at_posting.google.com>...
> "mcstock" <mcstockspamplug_at_spamdamenquery.com> wrote in message news:<2IadnQAB98PiCiyiRVn-vg_at_comcast.com>...
> > little bit of a late post but...
> >
> > "they don't have time to make up test data" -- it takes less time than
> > discussing why they need to use the production database for testing
> >
> > if all they need is realistic test data, just export the necessary tables
> > from the production database, then import them into the 'test' database --
> > the import can be rerun (after truncating the 'test' tables) anytime they
> > need a predictable test environment
> >

[and other good comments deleted]
>
> I am sorry if I was not clear. "The production tables average about 80
> million records". They are reading about 50,000 to 1,000,000 rows of
> data from flat files and doing queries on the production tables using
> this data as search criteria.

Rose,
 Is the export idea not acceptable to you for some reason?

Just saying "about 80million records" doesn't really tell us much. Is that all in one table? Or maybe 10 tables of 8million records each?

 Depending on the bytes per record that can be anything from less than 1Gigabyte to potentially terebytes. Do you have any backup process. From that backup, you should be able to create a development environment for the testers to play in. (If the backup is too big, I'd start wondering what plans you have for disaster recovery.)

 Are they testing just the quality of the production data? (e.g. verifying the existance of production records based on an external source?) Then the separate DB instance seems the best solution to me.

 Or are they testing performance on the production DB? If so, then how do they plan to factor out the overhead of the DB link?

 Or for some bizarre reason they feel the need to have a "real-time" view of the production data? For TESTING? I don't believe it.

The test approach sounds more like something done in a Datawarehouse. There's nothing I (and obviously others here) see in the information you provide that justifies access to production data.

HTH,
  ed Received on Mon Nov 17 2003 - 12:15:10 CST

Original text of this message

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