Oracle data protection reimagined: Detect changes and mask sensitive data straight away!
Oracle databases form the backbone of business-critical applications in many organisations. At the same time, it is precisely these databases that often contain particularly sensitive information: personal data, customer information, contract data, financial data or other content requiring protection. Traditional security mechanisms such as access rights, encryption or network security remain indispensable – yet they do not solve every challenge.
The situation becomes particularly critical when production data is replicated, transferred to analytics platforms, made available for test and development environments, or processed further via ETL and data integration processes. An interesting option is therefore to combine Change Data Capture (CDC) directly with data masking and data transformation!
Processing only changes rather than re-importing entire data sets: In production Oracle databases, data is constantly changing. Records are created, updated or deleted. If these changes are required for data warehouses, replications, analytics or other target systems, it is usually neither practical nor efficient to regularly re-import entire tables or databases. Change Data Capture focuses instead on the actual changes!
With IRI Ripcurrent, changes in Oracle and other supported relational databases can be captured. New, modified or deleted data records can thus be specifically identified and made available for downstream processes. The advantage: instead of repeatedly moving large data sets in their entirety, only relevant changes are processed.
CDC and data masking in a single process The real added value arises when Change Data Capture is not viewed in isolation! As soon as a change is detected, the relevant data can simultaneously be:
- masked or pseudonymised,
- encrypted,
- cleaned,
- filtered,
- transformed,
- converted,
- aggregated or
- prepared for different target systems during the subsequent processing.
For example, this allows new or modified Oracle data records to be identified and sensitive fields to be protected whilst they are being transferred to another system.
This means that production-grade plaintext data does not necessarily have to be transferred unchanged to test systems, data warehouses, analytics platforms or other downstream environments.
Integrating data protection directly into the data flow: Traditionally, data protection is often viewed as an additional processing step: data is first extracted or replicated and then masked in a separate process. Integrated processing can simplify this workflow!
When CDC, transformation and data masking are combined, the result is a data-oriented process in which data protection is taken into account whilst the data is in motion. Example:
An Oracle application stores customer information such as name, address, telephone number and account details. For an analytics platform, certain changes to data records are required almost in real time.
Ripcurrent detects the relevant changes. During further processing, sensitive attributes can, for example, be pseudonymised or masked before the data reaches its destination.
The data structure required for analysis is preserved, whilst the disclosure of personal information is reduced.
Particularly relevant for testing, DevOps and analytics: The risk of unnecessary data exposure is particularly high outside of production systems. Development, test, reporting or analytics environments often require realistic data structures, but do not necessarily need the actual identities of the individuals concerned.
By combining Oracle CDC and data masking, it is possible, for example, to generate continuously updated test or analytics datasets without replicating every change unprotected. This opens up interesting application possibilities for:
1. Data warehouses and business intelligence: Only relevant changes are incorporated and can be processed directly for reporting and analytics.
2. Testing and development environments: New or modified production data can be provided in a masked form before developers or testers access it.
3. Data replication: Oracle data can be transferred incrementally to other relational databases or platforms.
4. Cloud and hybrid architectures: Sensitive information can be protected before data leaves the original system environment.
5. ETL and data integration processes: CDC can be combined with transformation, data quality, conversion and masking.
Alternative: Analysing deltas even without traditional log-based CDC Not every scenario requires continuous real-time monitoring. With SortCL, the data processing engine behind IRI CoSort and IRI Voracity, even large tables, files and other data sources can be compared with one another. This allows inserts, updates and deletes to be identified as deltas.
This approach is particularly useful when change analyses are required across different data sources or when complex transformations need to be carried out in addition. The detected changes can then be processed immediately – for example, through cleansing, conversion, aggregation, reporting or data masking. This means that various approaches are available for CDC: from real-time capture of database changes to data-oriented comparison of large data sets.
Protect Oracle data without slowing down data processes!
Data protecion and data integration do not have to be separate processes. The combination of Oracle Change Data Capture, data replication, transformation and data masking makes it possible to identify changes precisely and protect sensitive information whilst it is en route to the target system.
Instead of repeatedly copying entire data sets and then securing them separately, data changes can be processed immediately. The result is a modern data flow in which performance, data integration and data protection are considered as a whole.
Particularly in data-intensive Oracle environments, this approach can help to make replication and ETL processes more efficient whilst significantly reducing the risk of unnecessary plaintext copies of sensitive data.
Efficiency meets experience: For more than four decades, our software solutions have been supporting companies in data management and data protection – technologically leading, reliable in productive use and applicable across all industries.
In use since 1978: Numerous well-known companies, service providers, financial institutions and state and federal authorities are among our long-standing customers.
Maximum compatibility: Our software supports both classic mainframe platforms (Fujitsu BS2000/OSD, IBM z/OS, z/VSE, z/Linux) and modern open system environments such as Linux, UNIX derivatives and Windows.
