Oracle Data Masking and Subsetting vs. Microsoft SQL Server

The tool is excellent when you need to provide all the details about your clients, yet hide their identity - all while maintaining the referential integrity of the data (so child-records of the masked parent record and maintain the same fake ID of the parent).

Incentivized

Microsoft SQL is ubiquitous, while MySQL runs under the hood all over the place. Microsoft SQL is the platform taught in colleges and certification courses and is the one most likely to be used by businesses because it is backed by Microsoft. Its interface is friendly (well, as pleasant as SQL can be) and has been used by so many for so long that resources are freely available if you encounter any issues.

Incentivized

• It offers several ways in which you can mask your data; for example, you can choose to replace all names with "real fake names", or choose to replace all SSNs with existing SSNs, but randomly assigned. You control the algorithm.
• It works on non-Oracle databases as well (in our case, we use it for both Oracle and SQL/Server).
• The overhead is minimal (it doesn't take long to run, and it doesn't consume too many system resources.

Incentivized

• Easy to configure and use with Visual Studio and Dot Net
• Easy integration with MSBI to perform data analysis
• Data Security
• Easy to understand and use
• Very easy to export database and tables in the form of SQL query or a script

Incentivized

• The learning curve was not trivial - but we got through it.
• Cost - this product is not cheap.

Incentivized

• Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise edition has a high cost but is the only edition which supports SQL Always On Availability Groups. It would be nice to include this feature in the Standard version.
• Licensing of Microsoft SQL Server is a quite complex matter, it would be good to simplify licensing in the future. For example, per core vs per user CAL licensing, as well as complex licensing scenarios in the Cloud and on Edge locations.
• It would be good to include native tools for converting Oracle, DB2, Postgresql and MySQL/MariaDB databases (schema and data) for import into Microsoft SQL Server.

Incentivized

We understand that the Microsoft SQL Server will continue to advance, offering the same robust and reliable platform while adding new features that enable us, as a software center, to create a superior product. That provides excellent performance while reducing the hardware requirements and the total cost of ownership of our solution.

Incentivized

SQL Server mostly 'just works' or generates error messages to help you sort out the trouble. You can usually count on the product to get the job done and keep an eye on your potential mistakes. Interaction with other Microsoft products makes operating as a Windows user pretty straight forward. Digging through the multitude of dialogs and wizards can be a pain, but the answer is usually there somewhere.

Incentivized

Its does not have outages.

Incentivized

SSAS data cubes may some time slow down your Excel reports.

Incentivized

We managed to handle most of our problems by looking into Microsoft's official documentation that has everything explained and almost every function has an example that illustrates in detail how a particular functionality works. Just like PowerShell has the ability to show you an example of how some cmdlet works, that is the case also here, and in my opinion, it is a very good practice and I like it.

Incentivized

It was good

Incentivized

very hands on and detailed training

Incentivized

Other than SQL taking quite a bit of time to actually install there are no problems with installation. Even on hardware that has good performance SQL can still take close to an hour to install a typical server with management and reporting services.

Incentivized

We also looked at Delphix: the tool was quite powerful, easy to use, and competitive from a cost standpoint. However, since our entire data warehouse environment is built on the Oracle technology stack, it made sense to us to use the Oracle product here, as it integrates very well with other Oracle database and ETL products.

Incentivized

[Microsoft] SQL Server has a much better community and professional support and is overall just a more reliable system with Microsoft behind it. I've used MySQL in the past and SQL Server has just become more comfortable for me and is my go to RDBMS.

Incentivized

SQL server does handle growing demands of a mid sized company.

Incentivized

• We have many compliance regulations we need to adhere to. Without this tool, we were always taking a risk of exposing client information, and get penalized by the State of the Feds (the financial consequences are significant).
• So while the tool doesn't save us money directly, it greatly reduces the risk we had been taking all these years. To some degree, this is much like an insurance policy.
• Given the above, it also allows us to share information with other departments/agencies, in situations where before we simply couldn't take the risk of exposing client information.

Incentivized

• Increased accuracy - We went from multiple users having different versions of an Excel spreadsheet to a single source of truth for our reporting.
• Increased Efficiency - We can now generate reports at any time from a single source rather than multiple users spending their time collating data and generating reports.
• Improved Security - Enterprise level security on a dedicated server rather than financial files on multiple laptop hard drives.

Incentivized