Test Data Orchestrator

Apica Test Data Orchestrator

Automate and Accelerate Testing with AI-Powered Self-Service Test Data

Modern enterprises depend on rapid, reliable software releases but test data management remains a critical bottleneck. Manual processes, centralized teams, and oversized production data copies slow release cycles, inflate cloud costs, and create privacy risks.

Apica Test Data Orchestrator (TDO) transforms test data management with self-service automation and AI-driven intelligence, eliminating delays and enabling teams to provision right-sized, compliant test data on demand.

The Problem

Test Data Management Creates Release Bottlenecks and Risk

Pre-production environments are essential for validating new features, but traditional test data practices hold teams back. Development and QA teams wait days or weeks for centralized data teams to provision test environments. When data finally arrives, it’s often a broad copy of production, creating massive, unmanageable footprints that are 10x larger than necessary.

The hidden costs of manual test data management:

Extended wait times: Teams wait days or weeks for test data provisioning, slowing release cadence and reducing agility
Oversized data footprints: Non-production environments replicate production data without subsetting, creating 10x larger footprints and exponentially higher cloud storage costs
Privacy and compliance risks: Most data breaches occur in non-production because controls are weaker and data surface areas are larger
Incomplete test coverage: Teams resort to risk-based testing instead of full coverage, due to time constraints, allowing defects to leak into production
Limited data for new builds: Platform migrations, cloud migrations, and greenfield projects lack appropriate test data, creating delays
Regulatory constraints: Some data privacy regulations prevent any use of production data whatsoever for testing, even masked data isn’t permitted

Pre-production realities driving test data complexity:

Multiple test environments: Development, QA, UAT, staging, and integration environments all require unique but similar data sets which must work E2E
Complex workflows: Testing payments processing, e-commerce transactions, financial, or healthcare systems requires intricate, referentially-intact data
Microservices architectures: Distributed systems require coordinated test data across multiple services and databases
Rapid iteration cycles: Agile and DevOps practices demand fresh test data multiple times per sprint

Organizations face an impossible choice: Accept slow, manual test data processes that delay releases, or sacrifice data quality and compliance to meet deadlines.

Our Solution

Self-Service Test Data Orchestration with AI Intelligence

Apica TDO transforms test data management from a centralized bottleneck into a self-service capability. Unlike traditional test data management tools that require specialized skills and coding, TDO’s criteria-driven approach enables development and QA teams to provision right-sized, compliant test data on demand, no coding required, no waiting for central teams.

Why TDO is architecturally different:

Self-service automation: Teams input criteria and press “Go”; TDO automatically provisions the exact data needed for testing without specialist skills
Intelligent filtering: Profiles production data to identify valid patterns, generates exact data subsets (e.g., 21,400 records instead of 10,000,000), reducing non-production storage by 90%+
AI-powered synthetic data: Generates referentially intact synthetic data for gaps, new builds, or regulatory requirements, using explainable AI (XAI) that keeps users in control
Automatic masking: Masks sensitive data before loading into non-production environments, minimizing privacy risks
API-driven orchestration: Integrates seamlessly with CI/CD pipelines for DevOps workflows, enabling automated data refresh on every build
Context retention: Maintains learnings and frameworks for easy reuse across test cycles—unlike competitors that regenerate from scratch

Think of TDO as the ATM of Test Data: Input your criteria, press Go and get the data you need on demand.

The TDO advantage: We don’t just make test data faster; we make it self-service, right-sized, right-coverage and compliant from day one.

How It Works

Criteria-Driven Test Data Pipeline

TDO delivers self-service test data through an intelligent, criteria-driven workflow that eliminates manual processes and coding requirements.

Intelligent Data Profiling and Subsetting

Production data analysis: Profiles production and other data sources to identify valid patterns, relationships, and coverage requirements, with zero data privacy risk
Exact subsetting: Generates executable data requests that extract only the records needed, reducing 10M records to e.g. 21K without losing test coverage
Referential integrity: Maintains relationships across tables, databases, and systems automatically.
Privacy by design: Filters and masks data before loading into non-production environments, reducing breach surface area by 90%+ replacing sensitive data with business-context-valid values which will be processed correctly in your applications.

AI-Powered Synthetic Data Generation

Explainable AI (XAI): Transparent, user-controlled synthetic data generation; no black boxes, users see and control every framework
Automatic alignment: Synthetic data aligns seamlessly with masked production data; users control which aspects are synthetic vs. actual
Greenfield support: Ingests schemas and intel from design docs to generate valid synthetic data for new builds with no production data
Complex workflows: Handles intricate scenarios like payments processing engines, financial transactions, insurance policies and claims, and multi-service workflows

Seamless Integration and Orchestration

TDO works as part of your complete software delivery lifecycle:

CI/CD integration: API-driven orchestration enables automated data refresh on every build or deployment
TDM tool compatibility: Works with existing test data management tools like IBM Optim, enhancing their value rather than replacing them
Agentic AI readiness: Agent-ready and prompt-compatible for watsonx Orchestrate and other agentic architectures
Multi-environment support: Provision data across development, QA, UAT, staging, and integration environments from one interface

Two Pipelines, One Unified Approach

TDO complements Apica’s observability ecosystem:

Telemetry Pipeline (Apica Flow): Filters observability data (logs, metrics, traces) for production monitoring and alerting
Test Data Pipeline (Apica TDO): Filters, orchestrates and enhances business data (customer records, transactions) for pre-production testing

Together, these pipelines create a closed-loop lifecycle: Production insights inform testing, and robust testing prevents production failures.

The Result

Enterprise Agility with Reduced Risk and Cost

Proven Test Data Orchestration Benefits

Organizations using TDO achieve:

90%+ reduction in test data provisioning wait time from days/weeks to minutes/hours with self-service automation
90%+ reduction in non-production data footprints through intelligent subsetting (10M records → e.g. 21K records)
60-80% reduction in non-production storage costs by eliminating unnecessary cloud data footprints
Eliminate defect leakage into production by enabling full test coverage instead of risk-based testing
90%+ reduction in data breach surface area through intelligent sub-setting and production-like synthetic data
Eliminate PII risk through automated masking of structured and unstructured data using TDO’s masking agent (XDP)
Accelerate release cadence by 40-60% by eliminating test data bottlenecks from software delivery

Real-World Impact

Before TDO: Our teams waited 2-3 weeks for test data, with oversized production copies creating compliance headaches and cloud cost overruns.

After TDO: Self-service data provisioning in minutes / hours, 90% smaller footprints, and our non-production storage costs dropped by 75%.

IBM Partnership Benefits

TDO is available through IBM as a Global Partner Program reseller:

Complements IBM Optim: Increases the value and usability of existing Optim investments exponentially through modern self-service capabilities
Agentic AI on-ramp: Provides IBM Watsonx Orchestrate customers an easy path to agentic AI adoption with agent-ready, API-enabled architecture
Exact subsetting: Works with Optim or Data Stage to create precise data subsets, reducing storage and privacy risks while maintaining test coverage

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Does TDO require coding skills?

No. TDO is designed for self-service use by development, QA and business teams without coding requirements. Users input criteria through an intuitive interface, and TDO handles data profiling, subsetting, masking, and synthetic data generation automatically. You can also use TDO fully via APIs as part of any CI/CD or Testing framework. When creating data generation rules, you can also use declarative syntax to build your own rules very easily.

How does TDO work with existing test data management tools like IBM Optim?

TDO complements and enhances existing TDM tools. It integrates with IBM Optim to create exact subsets of source data and adds modern capabilities like self-service provisioning, AI-powered synthetic data, and API-driven orchestration—increasing the value of your Optim investment exponentially. This alignment works with any TDM tools you are already using.

Can TDO generate synthetic data for greenfield projects with no production data?

Yes. TDO ingests database schemas and uses intel from design documents to generate valid, referentially-intact synthetic data for new builds, platform migrations, and cloud migrations—even when no production data exists. The available information, including SME knowledge is funneled into reusable, adjustable recipes, which generate the required data on demand.

How does TDO's explainable AI (XAI) differ from other synthetic data tools?

Unlike black-box approaches, TDO’s XAI creates transparent, reusable frameworks that users can see, control, and update. The AI doesn’t need to be hosted externally—it can be deployed in your environment. TDO also maintains context and learnings across cycles, unlike competitors that follow a ‘one and done’ approach to regenerate from scanned sources. With TDO you can always see and adjust the recipes used to define criteria and generate data.

What happens to data privacy and compliance?

TDO minimizes privacy risks by filtering and masking data before loading into non-production environments. It reduces data breach surface area by 90%+ through intelligent subsetting, allowing data masking (de-identification) to run much more quickly. Masking structured and unstructured data eliminates PII risk in non-production. For strict regulatory requirements, TDO can generate fully synthetic data that eliminates the need for any production data in testing. TDO can be acquired with or without the data privacy module which masks (de-identifies) sensitive source data safely for use in testing.

Can TDO integrate with CI/CD pipelines?

Yes. TDO is fully API-enabled and integrates seamlessly with CI/CD workflows. Teams can automate data refresh on every build or deployment, enabling true DevOps practices for test data management. The same principle applies to generating Test Coverage and Synthetic Data. All TDO objects can also be defined and edited via API. Many customers run TDO headlessly, including updating criteria, data source versions and even generation rules.

How quickly can teams provision test data with TDO?

TDO reduces provisioning time by 90%+. What previously took days or weeks now takes minutes / hours. Teams input criteria, press “Go,” and receive right-sized, compliant test data on demand. This efficiency is driven by the reduction of data footprint coming into non-production through intelligent subsetting and synthetic data, but also by removing the sequential dependency on central TDM teams to refresh environments. This creates the ability for multiple teams to self-serve in parallel, increasing velocity and cadence, especially during integration.

*Note: Provisioning times are directly correlated to data volumes

Does TDO maintain referential integrity across databases?

Yes. TDO maintains relationships across tables, databases, and systems—including complex workflows like payments processing engines.

What's the typical ROI for TDO?

Organizations typically achieve 60-80% reduction in non-production storage costs, 40-60% acceleration in release cadence, and 90%+ reduction in test data provisioning delays. The exact ROI depends on your data volumes, environment complexity, and current manual processes.

Is TDO ready for agentic AI architectures?

Yes. TDO is agent-ready, prompt-compatible, and fully API-enabled—making it future-proof for agentic architectures like IBM watsonx Orchestrate. It provides an easy on-ramp use case for organizations adopting agentic AI, with no risk of impacting Production systems.

Contact & Support

Questions about Test Data Orchestration?

Email: [email protected]
Phone: Contact your IBM Data & AI representative
Chat: Live chat on apica.io
Schedule: Book technical consultation

Technical Documentation

TDO is part of the Apica tool suite for intelligent telemetry and test data management. Also available through IBM Global Partner Program.

Synthetic Monitoring