IBM Optim Data Privacy Solution to Protect Employee and Customer Data

Safeguarding the privacy of data is not just good business practice, in many cases, it's now the law. "De-identifying" confidential data in test and development systems is one of the best ways to protect privacy and support compliance initiatives.

We have implemented the IBM Optim Data Privacy Solution for many clients by masking and transforming the sensitive data in their test and development systems. By masking personal information, IBM Optim protects the privacy and security of confidential customer and employee data, and ensures compliance with local, state, national, international and industry-based privacy regulations. Data de-identification enables developers, testers and trainers to use realistic data and produce valid test results, while still complying with privacy protection rules. De-identified data is generally considered acceptable to use in non-production environments, and ensures that even if the data is stolen, exposed or lost, it will be of no use to anyone.

One notable data privacy client success started with a proof of concept (POC). We joined hands with IBM Global Services for a quick implementation on a custom application deployed on an Informix database with HP UNIX, masking various fields across seven hundred database tables. The major objective was to reduce the 5-day effort to create a privatized test system, with a small subset of masked data. By implementing Optim Test Data Management and Data Privacy Solutions, we reduced the whole process to one day-repeatably.

Design and Implement an effective IBM Optim Data Privacy Solution

Another of our data privacy successes was for a global consumer products company, which was in the process of implementing Oracle EBS Release 12. As part of its new configuration, it had over twenty test and development environments, and became concerned about the widespread availability of confidential information. We designed and implemented an effective IBM Optim Data Privacy Solution for these environments.

We are also very proud of our product development relationship with the IBM Optim Product Development organization. Recently, IBM asked us to enhance its Data Privacy Solution for a large defense organization running Oracle EBS Human Resources modules. Its very large employee database and complex requirements demanded sophisticated data privatization algorithms not supported in the current product version. Our efforts have helped ensure a major customer success, while providing valuable new data privacy functionality to the core product.