Broadcom Test Data Manager Reviews

Test Data Management solution for our DevOps model, which is very useful. Data privatization (GDPR enable), synthetic test data generation, and test data provisioning are its main interesting features.

On-time production and real time data for DevOps testing environment and CI/CD pipeline.

Data privatization, provisioning, and generation for DevOps and CI/CD pipeline. 

• More features on Big Data environment data privatization. 
• Synthetic data generation on domain specific. 
• SAP test data generation for SAP testing.

The benefit is that it removes manual intervention. A lot of the time that we've spent previously was always manually, as an individual running SQL scripts against databases, or manually going through a UI to create data. These solutions allow us to incorporate automation and self-service to eliminate all of our manual efforts.

Currently the data mining, complex data mining, that we do out there. Any sort of financial institution runs along the same challenges that we face in that referential integrity across all databases, and finding that one unique customer piece of information that meets all the criteria that we're looking for. All the other functions are fabulous as far as sub-setting, data creation.

I think the biggest one will be - all financial institutions are based on mainframes, so they're never going to go away. Opportunities to increase functionality and efficiencies within the mainframe solution, within this TDM product. Certainly, it does what we need out there, but there's always opportunities for greatly improving it.

Stability for the past year and a half has been very good. We have not had an outage that has prevented us from doing anything. It has allowed us to connect to the critical databases that we need, so no challenges.

We haven't run into any issues at this point. So far we think that we're going to be able to get where we need to. In the future, as we expand, we may have a need to increase the hardware associated with it and optimize some query language, but I think we'll be in good shape.

We were not using a previously solution. It was all home-grown items that we did out there, so a lot of automated scripting and some performance scripting that we did, in addition to manual efforts. 

As we looked at what the solutions were, some of our core features that we needed were synthetic data creation, and to be able to do complex data mining and profiling across multiple databases with referential integrity intact across them. CA's product actually came through with the highest score and met the most of our needs.

I'd rate it about an eight. It provides the functionality that we're needing. There are always opportunities for improvement and I don't ever give anyone a 10, so it's good for our needs.

We are having a serious trouble delivering and providing development environments and test environments for the diversifications that we use at the bank. What we are trying to do is use the time for that delivery, and that is why we are exploring using CA tools for networks. We already have the Server Virtualization tool, and now we are entering into the test of the management phase of tables.

We realized before what we are looking for. Now, we are trying to get everybody to work with the DevOps mindset. That is the main advantage and benefit that we are seeing here.

They are able to provide some technical data, then provide that data to multiple teams for testing purposes. That is the most value for us.

We just started using it. I can't tell you right now.

I can't tell you, because we have not had it for a long time. We have had it for two months. We are starting to really implement it, but so far, so good.

I can't really tell you much. I can tell you about the integration, because we are integrating it with the Service Virtualization tool. Here, we are having a lot of benefits.

For example, we are starting to provide the data necessary to prove little pieces of code or small integration packages, and we have seen a lot of value there.

We have a provider based in Costa Rica. They are the ones that are giving us all the implementation and support. 

Specifically for problems, we have not had any issues yet.

We were not previously using a different solution.

We were already using some CA products before, like Service Desk and ITCM, those are related to infrastructure and the computer themselves. The provider talked to use about if we wanted to get into DevOps. CA had the tools for implementing this strategy, and that is how we found out about it. We saw the demos, then we decided the solution was made for us.

The initial setup was straightforward. Basically, just install, next, and start using it. I figured it out right away.

We did look at SiSoft in Costa Rica, but I do not even know the names of the others, because I was not directly involved with those. I know that we selected SiSoft as an option because of their experience.

We chose CA because of their experience.

The first thing that you should start with is the requirements and automation. That is the first step. We started with the Service Virtualization, then we found that we should have started with the requirements first. Because the natural processes are defined in our requirements, then you go to the virtualizer services that you are going to need, and then the data, but we started with the Service Virtualization. Now, we realized that we needed to start with the requirements first.

It would be working better if the requirements were designed right.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

• Experience. The vendor already has to have big clients. 
• The implementation process has to be very easy. It was.

The benefit is that it's something you can repeat over and over again, once a solution is in place. You can benefit from it as often as you want to and without having to constantly looking for support.

The most valuable feature of this solution is data quality, that ability to provide data for testers and developers that is actually usable.

The additional feature probably would be a data reservation that is more robust, where you can actually use it consecutively. It is a difficult way to do things, so the data reservation, for us, is very important.

Also, maybe they could make it easier to model databases, because right now it is really technical, so to train someone on it takes a while.

I would say very stable. At this point, the solution is very well-vetted and used and maintained, so we are able to get good results out of the tools that we are using.

The solution - once it's in place - you really don't have to give a tool to the users. All you have to do is make it visible to them, so they can use it as a self-service solution, which is very helpful. You don't have to grow a team to have thousands of people. You could have a very small nimble team that does development, and then just propagate to everybody else to use with a click.

There's no other way to get good data. You can't do it manually. It has to have some solution. You need a tool because federation of the data is the most important thing that you need to be able to test with.

Our applications are very complex. When you have hundreds and hundreds of databases everywhere, how do you do that without looking for keys? If you do it manually, you're going to need a lot of people. With the tool, I work with five people on my team. Right now, we're modeling 700 different databases, and we can do it very quickly because of the tool.

I give it an eight out of 10, only because it is complex. There are some things that still need to be worked out, but overall, it's a very good solid solution.

We are using it to implement test data management.

It is a new implementation so there were some challenges. But so far, it has been good.

The most valuable feature is the Portal that comes with the tool. That helps make it look much more user-friendly for the users. 

Also its ease of use - even for developers it's not that complicated.

It gives us the ability to 

• mask the data
• sub-set the data
• synthetically generate test data
• create test data for specific business case scenarios

and more.

• Addition of more data sources.
• Make the Portal a little more user-friendly, make it even easier to configure things directly from the Portal.

It is stable, but it is not where even CA wants it to be. There have been numerous releases going on and there are still some we are waiting for. But, overall it's good.

It is scalable. This particular tool is  used by certain types of engineers, TDM engineers. But the recipient of the tool can be anybody so it can be scaled for as many licenses as the customer is willing to pay for. It's kind of expensive.

Tech support has been very helpful.

They have been responsive as best they can. I'm assuming that they're very busy, and they are. They usually respond within the same day. And usually the requests that go to the technical support side are not that simple either, so I can understand that.

We are partners with CA, so this was one of the strategic directions my company also wanted to take. And CA had the near-perfect solution, which we thought we should invest in, together.

It was good. There were some issues. It wasn't as smooth as we had thought.

We ran into a network issue, a firewall issue, things like that. It wasn't something we could not fix. We worked with the CA support and with the client's team to fix it. But there were issues, it took a lot of time to install and configure.

We are a consulting company, so when we go to a client we do an evaluation. Often we have to tell them what about the different products we evaluated. So in this case CA TDM has competition: Informatica has a similar product called Informatica TDM; IBM has a similar product called IBM InfoSphere Optim. These are the main competitors of CA.

When selecting a vendor the important criteria are 

• ease of use
• responsiveness of the technical support
• forward-looking products. By that I mean, do they have a plan for the next three months, six months, year, not just make the product and then forgot about it.

For this particular area, test data management, because I am involved in evaluating other companies' products as well, CA so far is the leader. I personally compare each feature for all the companies we evaluate. So far CA is the number one. There is still some improvement to be done, which CA is aware of. But I think I would advise a colleague that we can start with CA.

The benefits of doing something like the data creation is that you are going to be able to totally have control of your data from the get-go. You are not worrying about "what you see is what you get" kind of results from a production set. Instead you are just using all sorts of built-in functions, seed lists, or data calls which are live at that moment to be able to really manipulate your data and create exactly the data set that your testers need. That is very powerful. 

Then on the vTDM side, which is the database cloning, the ability for them to have full control of their environment is the most important aspect of testing sometimes. Now, you do not have to worry about what is on your left, what is on your right, and who you are going to be hurting by trying to do the best testing that you can. Instead you have just you are own set that you can work with. You can spin it up and burn it down when you are done. 

TDM has tons of great solutions involved in one package. For me personally, what I find to be most valuable is its ability to do synthetic data creation. I love that because it has a lot of flexibility and you do not have to worry about one specific database or how you are going to manage all the data points. What you can do is  instead of taking everything from production and wondering what you are going to get from there, you can just create it all from the get-go yourself. That is a beautiful thing to be able to do. 

There is other stuff that they are working on right now, and that includes things like the vTDM or Virtual Test Data Management. That is where they have the ability to do test data clones. It is really neat because after doing some of that creation, or if you are going to do some subsetting, then you have a great looking database. What you can do now is you can take really small copy, actually a full size copy but really small in size, and you can send that out to any of your testers to be able to use personally for their testing. That is cool because it gives them an expanded way to do their testing. They can do tons of unit tests, functional tests, and destructive tests, and they do not have to worry about the environment around them, because this is just their copy. 

As the solution continues to evolve, the one thing I like about it is the API-friendly layers that they have added into the realm. So, I just would like to see more support around that and more usability. If we can continue expand upon that, then it is going to open a lot of doors.

The stability of TDM is probably what I love about it the most. We have not had any major issues at any point since we have started utilizing the tool. Anytime we have had either a small bug or something that we would like to see as an enhancement, it is always been a quick call to the support team to be able to work on it with me. 

TDM scalability has actually come a long way. I am really impressed with what they have done over the last couple of years for it. Specifically, what I really like is, as they moved from a thick line that was a little bit clumsy and cluttered, what we see now is that we have a web portal that is built on top of an entire API framework. Utilizing those APIs, it gives us a chance to do whatever we want with the tool, not just its specific built-in functions through the UI layer, but anything I want to do integrated with the open source abilities out there as well.

TDM's technical support, specifically CA's technical support as a whole, has been wonderful for us. I have close relationships at this point with any of the guys there. If ever I see a potential bug, if ever I have a question that I just can't figure out myself in a very short amount of time, or if there is a new enhancement that I want to have worked on, I am a quick phone call away or a support ticket away. I can honestly say that if I had gone the route of creating a ticket, which we all know can sometimes go into a black hole with some companies, I have always gotten a call back within an hour from CA's technical support solutions and they are a wonderful team to work with. 

My company decided to invest in Test Data Manager because we were going through a large transformation. We were doing both a legacy system transformation and an agile transformation for our teams. Out of that spawned tons of productivity and tons of great morale boosting initiatives at the office. 

It also created tons of havoc for someone in the test data realm, because now we were working with, instead of just a couple databases on a legacy system, every database under the sun that those teams decided to work with. 

We decided to look at a bunch of different systems solutions that were out there, and we decided that TDM had the best full set of solutions available for us to be able work with the largest amount of our teams.

It is neat because as we have continued (we made that decision a couple of years go), the industries continued one of their biggest pushes which has been this idea to shift left and do continuous testing as part of a continuous delivery system. TDM has actually positioned itself very nicely to allow us to do that, because by doing things like the data creation, then I can create a fully isolated database for people to be able to work with it at the earliest stages for the unit testing and functional testing. Then, I can move them directly with the same solutions into a more integrated environment, and use the same tool set to be able to build out all the data they are going to need there and so on, as it moves down the line all the way into production.

It is not an easy thing to give a 10 on a scale of one to 10 for ratings, but I have to say, I think the TDM solution is a 10.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: I think when you are trying to choose a vendor to work with on some of these solutions, you really have to decide if they are going to work with you as well. CA has been a great partner for us, because they are always there to work with us. It is not them having a solution that they are trying to cram down your throat, instead it is them trying to figure out what your needs are and building solutions around that. 

One thing that we're using Test Data Manager for, is to build data marks so that we can test APIs of our application using users from every company within our application.

The benefits are that TDM allows us to find the right test data for the test that we need, and then it also allows us to get the required data inputs into our API test, so that we can do a full test.

One of the features that I wanted, which I think is going to be released, is to be able to create virtualized data sets, or virtualized databases. That's a feature we're going to take advantage of. All of our developers will be able to have their own virtual copy of a golden copy of our database, and be able to do transactions against their virtual copy, and then restore back to a known good checkpoint.

This solution has been very stable for us. We've gone through multiple upgrades of versioning, and each one of them gets progressively better. 

The scalability is outstanding. We're able to scale it to any size of data that we want. We can do small data sets, we can do large data sets.

On many occasions, we have sought CA's technical team to help us solve problems, and they've always been very responsive. A good relationship.

Our team made the decision that we were going to get into DevOps and do test automation. As a way of providing our API test adequate data, we knew we needed to have a better solution than manually collecting data from databases. So we brought in Test Data Manager to work in conjunction with our app test.

If I were talking to my peer managers, I would recommend Test Data Manager - and I have, on multiple occasions - because it does allow the developer to have quick access to data that, normally, would take them hours or sometimes days to gather. 

I would say TDM, on a scale of one to 10, is probably in the eight category. It's a very solid solution. I think it can do more for us, and we're always trying to find new ways of using Test Data Manager.

As part of the DevOps function, what we are trying to do is create a subset in masked environments that is the basis for our development and testing. In the health care industry, we have a lot of concern with PII and PHI, so making sure that it is not exposed in non prod environments. Also, lessening the amount of disk space which is used for these environments, making it faster, speedier to market, etc.

So far, it is performing well. We are still in our initial build out phase, but it is all coming together. 

We are still in our DevOps build out phase. However, it will allow us to have quicker releases, more frequent with smaller content, as well as speed up our testing.

The masking of data has really been key for us to be able to replace PII with fake values. To be able to model the data, then subset it based upon a set of drivers that I use. 

They are currently working on a lot of things that we have requested to simplify: the UI and to make it more consistent; a better fit and finish. Get everything centralized into the portal.

It is improving. We have become part of the design partner program for several of the tools and we really see them heading in the right direction. We look forward to some of the improvements that they are making.

We have used technical support throughout: logging some tickets and some issues that we have had. As well as going into the communities page to give some recommendations. Technical support is really quick to respond and usually very helpful.

Things have been relatively easy to either work around or they have been able to be identified pretty quickly and get flagged for future fixes.

The initial setup was complex, because it is new to the company as well as new to me. It is a new role for me, so building it from the ground up certainly makes it complex.

Feel free to ask questions. There are really helpful people that are willing to take the time to work with you and provide a solution. Think about it holistically. Do not think about it as a siloed approach to just solving one problem. Think about how it is going to fit into the larger DevOps organization. 

CA willingness to listen to customers has surprised me. Being part of this design partner program, I really feel like our concerns are being taken seriously and it is not just sales pitch stuff. 

What do you personally like to see in a vendor: That you are being taken seriously. That your concerns are valid and to see actual movement with them. This is my first vendor that I have worked with extensively, which has been good.