Data Masking is the replacement of sensitive data with non-sensitive data.

Within the Data Masking industry this generally also implies that the new non-sensitive values are realistic values. For example, the first name "John" will typically be replaced with an effectively random name such as "Frank" - this is a realistic value replacement. Alternatively, any other unrealistic value that satisfies the business rules associated with this data field could also be used. This may be as simple as any other text value - such as "Klxnoqp". Technically, this new value would satisfy these requirements and the target application would likely function normally. However, the end user (e.g. a tester or trainee) may be confused by seeing such a non-realistic value and begin to doubt the integrity of the database or application and so this is why non-realistic values are avoided.

Some other common terms used for Data Masking are: Data Anonymization, Data Obfuscation, Data Scrambling, Data Redaction, Data De-Identification, Data Desensitization and Data Cleansing.

Finally, sometimes people comment that to "mask" does/should actually mean to just partially 'cover-up' an existing value. For example, masking the the value "12345678" with "X" could produce "123XXXXX". Perhaps traditionally that may have been the case, however, within the Data Masking industry "data masking" has a much broader meaning, as described above.

Generally, no.

A common misconception of 'data masking' is that it encrypts the database so that unauthorized users cannot read the sensitive contents. Generally, this is not the case - in fact, it would probably render the database unusable by the target application. For example, the encrypted value of a field may produce a result that is illegal to the data definition or violates business rules that would cause an error in the application. DataVeil does, however, offer a format-preserving encryption using the Randomize mask . It replaces alphabetic characters with alphabetic characters (preserving case), digits with digits, and preserves all other characters (white-space and special symbols).  

DataVeil has a very small learning curve

If you have watched the short demo video (less than 5 minutes) and reviewed the Getting Started section (a few pages) then you can get started in minutes. Most people who have a basic working knowledge of their database will find DataVeil to be generally intuitive and can become productive very quickly. It's really more a question of becoming familiar with data masking principles and understanding the relationships within your data that you wish to mask or obfuscate. For example, it is very easy to mask a column such as "FirstName". This literally only takes a few clicks of the mouse to set up and execute. What you may need to understand is whether the rows in that table contain male and female first names, and whether it is acceptable for a female name to be replaced with a male name and vice versa. If not, then how can 'male' rows be differentiated from 'female' rows? Is it simply on the basis of another column such as 'Gender' or will a join to another table be required?  

DataVeil is among the fastest data masking tools available

This is one of those questions similar to "How long is a piece of string?". The simple fact of the matter is that different masks have different overheads and so they vary in resource requirements and speed of execution. This is particularly true if you are using user-written masks. It also depends on the properties of the tables and columns that you are masking and how they are organized on disk.

However, to give you a general idea, the Shuffle mask will typically mask 1,000,000 rows in less than one minute using the modest computing resources of a modern mid-range desktop computer. Slower masks, such as PAN and Randomize may take approximately 10 minutes to mask 1,000,000 rows.

No. DataVeil is a focused data masking tool.

If you are a large enterprise and are seeking to deploy an extensive end-to-end data management system that incorporates data masking then DataVeil may not be for you. Other vendors have solutions for this and these can represent considerable and ongoing investments in time and resources. It may take months to implement (or a year or so), and cost well into six figures (and maybe into seven).

Conversely, if you can already manage your data and are looking for a highly effective data masking tool then DataVeil may be a good fit for you.

In terms of static data masking capabilites DataVeil competes with the products listed below. It should be noted that some of these products also offer dynamic data masking and data management capabilites (and they are considerably more expensive!)

• Camouflage (Imperva)
• Data Masker (Redgate)
• DgSecure (Dataguise)
• DMSuite (Delphix)
• Fast Data Masker (CA Technologies)
• Informatica Persistent Data Masking (Informatica)
• iScramble (MENTIS)
• Optim (IBM)
• Oracle Data Masking Pack (Oracle)

We publish our price list.

Please refer to our price list.