How to generate "realistic but fake" SQL Server test data, using SQL Data Generator, and then use SQL Data Compare to produce an INSERT script that Flyway can run to load the data into the database. The technique is useful for managing small volumes of test data or for "topping up" existing data when you create new entities. Read more
How to use a SQL random data generator to fill SQL Server tables with realistic test data, to shift left database unit testing, integration testing and performance testing so that it is performed during the early stages of database development. Read more
Phil Factor takes a staged approach to generating development data, creating one project that simply copies data from an existing database, another that copies most data but generates any personal or sensitive data, and a third that starts from 'anonymized' data and then generates other columns entirely and increase the number of rows for testing. Read more
Have you ever had to demonstrate a database-driven application, and longed to have the real data to do so? To do what, precisely? Well, so you can then scroll through the customers who have used the system, demonstrate the accounting and audit, browse through the products, maybe even demo the customer tracking system with comments, complaints and so on. All this is possible, using realistic, fake data. Read more
There is no single, correct approach to developing and testing your SQL batches and routines. It depends on the requirement. For simple tasks, like modifying and testing a view or stored procedure, SQL Compare and SQL Data Generator, combined, provide a useful, lightweight development harness. Read more
Phil Factor demonstrates how to export data from a database, as JSON files, validate it using JSON Schema, then build a fresh development copy of the database using SQL Change Automation, and import all the test data from the JSON files. Read more
How to use SQL Data Generator, and PowerShell to obfuscate personal data (names), while retaining the same distribution of data, so that the test database behaves like the original. Read more
Starting from a database view, as the basis for a typical sales reports, Phil factor shows how to generate a data-masked version of this report, which the Tax Men can safely pore over. Read more
Generating realistic test data is a challenging task, made even more complex if you need to generate that data in different formats, for the different database technologies in use within your organization. Dave Poole proposes a solution that uses SQL Data Generator as a ‘data generation and translation’ tool. Read more
Phil Factor shows how to use SQL Data Generator to produce as much pseudonymized data as you are likely to need for your testing, and then convert it to JSON so that you can also use it to test your MongoDB and Azure Cosmos databases, or to test out a new web service. Read more
This article offers a build-and-fill method for development databases, where each developer will subsequently want to alter the data or metadata in his or her copy of the database. Read more
To get the best results, you need to provide SQL Data Generator with some hints on how the data ought to look. Phil Factor nudges it towards realistic text data. Read more
With basic grasp of regex expressions, a tool like SQL Data Generator can generate test data with addresses that are realistic for your part of the world. Read more