DATA TRANSFER GUIDE

• US 20160203011A1
• Filed: 01/28/2016
• Published: 07/14/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tricentis Americas, Inc. (Tricentis GmbH)
• Original Assignee: Intellicorp Incorporated
• Inventors: Faught, Bill, Trueman, Christopher
• Granted Patent: US 9,870,241 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/36 Preventing errors by testing or debugging software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3672 Test management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45591 Monitoring or debugging support
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45516 Runtime code conversion or optimisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

Techniques to create and use a data transfer guide are disclosed. In various embodiments, at least a portion of application code comprising an application is executed in a virtual machine execution environment. An interaction between the application code executing in the virtual machine execution environment with a data entity included in a set of production data is observed programmatically. A data that represents the data entity is included in a data transfer guide at least in part programmatically.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

executing in a virtual machine execution environment at least a portion of application code comprising an application; and

observing programmatically an interaction between the application code executing in the virtual machine execution environment with a data entity included in a set of production data to create a data transfer guide, wherein to create the data transfer guide at least includes;

determining whether the application code is attempting to change a production data value associated with the data entity; and

in the event the application code attempts to change the production data value, storing data reflecting the change in a shadow data store associated with the virtual machine execution environment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the data entity comprises a first data entity and further comprising observing a relationship between the first data entity and a second data entity included in the set of production data.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising storing the relationship between the first data entity and the second data entity and the interaction between the application code executing in the virtual machine execution environment with the data entity.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising creating the data transfer guide at least in part on the interaction and a relationship between the data entity and the application code.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein to create the data transfer guide further includes determining a subset of production data to be copied to a secondary location.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the secondary location includes a test environment.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the secondary location includes a development environment.

8. The method of claim 5, further comprising copying the subset of production data to the secondary location.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising performing data masking with respect to at least a portion of the subset of production data as stored in the secondary location.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the data masking renders confidential application data anonymous.

11. A system, comprising:

a memory; and

a processor coupled to the memory and configured to;

execute in a virtual machine execution environment at least a portion of application code comprising an application; and

observing programmatically an interaction between the application code executing in the virtual machine execution environment with a data entity included in a set of production data to create a data transfer guide, wherein to create the data transfer guide the processor is at least configured to;

determine whether the application code is attempting to change a production data value associated with the data entity; and

in the event the application code attempts to change the production data value, storing data reflecting the change in a shadow data store associated with the virtual machine execution environment.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the data entity comprises a first data entity and further comprising observing a relationship between the first data entity and a second data entity included in the set of production data.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the processor is further configured to store the relationship between the first data entity and the second data entity and the interaction between the application code executing in the virtual machine execution environment with the data entity.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the processor is further configured to create the data transfer guide at least in part on the interaction and a relationship between the data entity and the application code.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the processor is at least configured to determine a subset of production data to be copied to a secondary location.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the processor is further configured to copy the subset of production data to the secondary location.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the processor is further configured to perform data masking with respect to at least a portion of the subset of data as stored in the secondary location.

18. A computer program product, stored on a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, comprising computer instructions for:

executing in a virtual machine execution environment at least a portion of application code comprising an application; and

observing programmatically an interaction between the application code executing in the virtual machine execution environment with a data entity included in a set of production data to create a data transfer guide, wherein to create the data transfer guide at least includes;

determining whether the application code is attempting to change a production data value associated with the data entity; and

in the event the application code attempts to change the production data value, storing data reflecting the change in a shadow data store associated with the virtual machine execution environment.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the data entity comprises a first data entity and further comprising observing a relationship between the first data entity and a second data entity included in the set of production data.

20. The computer program product of claim 19, further comprising instructions for storing the relationship between the first data entity and the second data entity and the interaction between the application code executing in the virtual machine execution environment with the data entity.