A clone doesn’t have to end up being identical to the original database. To make changes, you have the choice of modifying the image, the individual clones, or both. If the alterations take time and they apply to all clones, then it makes sense to alter the image. You can alter the image after it is created, before it is used to create clones, by temporarily mounting it on a SQL server and executing scripts against it. Obviously, all the changes you make are applied to every clone.

It is also likely that you’ll need to automate certain, additional scripted changes to each clone, either during clone creation, or once the clone is in place. These scripts might modify the database, or database configuration settings, or make changes to server-level security, or other server configuration settings.

During image creation

You can alter the image after it is created, before it is used to create clones, by temporarily mounting it on a SQL server and executing scripts against it. Obviously, all the changes you make are applied to every clone.

As of version 2.4.0, Clone can make specific changes to your images while it creates them, before it makes them available for cloning.

In version 2.4.0, this was limited to running T-SQL scripts on the image database. As of version 2.5.0, Clone can also invoke Data Masker 6 on the database image, making it easier to provision sanitized copies of sensitive production databases.

See the image modifications page for more detail.

During clone creation

As of version 2.6.0, Clone can also modify your clones while they are being created by applying a clone template to them.

See the clone modifications page for more detail.