Efficient management of test data is critical for organizations. Test Data Management (TDM) enables the provision of realistic and secure data for development and test processes. Companies often face a choice between different TDM solutions, including IBM Optim and XDM from UBS Hainer. – Based on customer feedback, this article shows how the solutions differ in detail and why many companies choose XDM as a more powerful alternative.
Flexibility in Creating and Managing Test Data Sets
Importance: Flexible test data management enables precise and dynamic data scenarios that specifically address different test environment requirements. This reduces manual intervention, promotes automation, and ensures rapid adaptation to changing system landscapes and agile processes.
IBM Optim provides basic functionality for creating test data sets. XDM, on the other hand, allows you to define flexible and detailed test data scenarios. For example, subsets of multiple databases can be selectively extracted and used in different test environments. This makes it possible to feed even complex test scenarios across multiple applications with test data.
Automation and Process Optimization
Importance: Automation in TDM software performs tasks such as data extraction, transformation, masking, and delivery automatically and on schedule, reducing manual intervention and sources of error. At the same time, process optimization standardizes workflows and integrates them into agile IT environments, enabling flexible adaptation to changing business needs.
IBM Optim often requires manual intervention. XDM offers significant efficiency gains through its automation capabilities, particularly the automated and scheduled execution of TDM processes. This is especially important for organizations that are embracing agile development processes.
Easy Detection and Processing of Data Changes
Importance: Easy data change detection and processing enables rapid and automatic detection of updates in data sources and consistent processing in target systems. This minimizes manual intervention and ensures data integrity and responsiveness in dynamic IT environments.
While IBM Optim provides basic DDL processing capabilities, customers report that additional manual effort is often required in this area. XDM combines detailed comparison and migration capabilities with automated schema change detection to accurately manage version differences across development, test and production environments. Updated source or target databases are processed in a structured and automated manner, significantly reducing manual effort.
Defect Management and Analysis of Process Defects
Importance: Effective defect management enables early detection and systematic analysis of process defects, enabling rapid identification and resolution of root causes. This stabilizes processes and minimizes long-term negative effects on overall quality and efficiency.
XDM immediately notifies users when a TDM process fails and provides extensive analysis capabilities for troubleshooting. This makes it much easier to identify and correct errors. With IBM Optim, clients often find troubleshooting cumbersome and time-consuming.
Data Quality and Consistency Checking
Importance: Data quality ensures that information is accurate, complete, and reliable, which is essential for informed decisions and efficient business processes. Consistency checks identify and resolve inconsistencies between different data sources, ensuring data integrity across all systems.
XDM provides mechanisms to ensure data quality. This includes automated consistency checks between test and production databases. Inconsistencies are detected and can be corrected immediately. Customers report that IBM Optim offers fewer automated quality assurance options, which can lead to manual review efforts.
Data Protection and Security Aspects
Importance: Privacy and security issues ensure that personal and sensitive information is protected from unauthorized access and misuse. Appropriate measures ensure the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of information, which is essential for legal compliance and trust in IT systems.
Today’s security requirements demand robust access and data protection mechanisms. XDM supports Azure/OpenID for single sign-on (SSO) and provides detailed permissions and audit reporting capabilities. While IBM Optim also meets security standards, XDM provides a more flexible and user-friendly security architecture.
Support for Container Technologies and Cloud Environments
Importance: Support for container technologies enables consistent, isolated, and portable execution of applications regardless of the underlying infrastructure. Seamless integration with cloud environments promotes flexible scaling, rapid deployment and optimized resource utilization in dynamic IT landscapes.
XDM’s integration with Docker and Kubernetes makes installation, maintenance and updates easier than with IBM Optim. Customers report that XDM is easy to deploy on Linux servers using the included instructions, while IBM Optim often requires more manual configuration.
Monitoring and Transparency
Importance: Monitoring enables the continuous observation of systems and processes so that anomalies and bottlenecks can be identified in real time. Transparency ensures that all relevant processes and data are documented in a traceable manner, supporting informed control and optimization of the IT infrastructure.
XDM provides an integrated monitoring dashboard with Prometheus and Grafana. This allows organizations to monitor resource usage, running processes and potential bottlenecks in real time. IBM Optim offers less comprehensive capabilities in this area.
Degree of Innovation and Future-Proofing
Importance: A high degree of innovation means that new features and technologies are continuously integrated to meet the changing needs of modern IT landscapes. This ensures future-proofing by allowing the software to adapt flexibly to new business processes and technological developments.
Customers praise the ongoing development of XDM, particularly in the areas of automation, security features and cloud integration. IBM Optim, on the other hand, is perceived by some users as less innovative, with longer update cycles and limited adaptability to modern architectures.
Conclusion
Choosing the right test data management solution is critical to the efficiency and security of development and test processes. While IBM Optim is a proven solution, customer feedback and objective comparisons show that XDM is a more modern, flexible, and powerful alternative. Automation, process optimization, security features and ease of use are the main reasons why many companies are moving to XDM.
If you are looking for a future-proof and efficient TDM solution, XDM is the right choice.
