The Data Masker Rule Statistics Tab

The primary function of the Rule Statistics tab is to provide a record of the status of individual masking rules as the masking set is executed. The current execution state and statistics are presented for each rule individually. Aggregate statistics for the masking set as a whole and specific statistics for those masking rules currently executing can be found on the Run Statistics tab.

The masking rule display at the top of the Rule Statistics tab lists all rules in the current masking set. There are ten vertical columns in the masking rule display. These columns provide specific information on various components of the rule. All of the statistics fields are "live" and will constantly update as the rule is executing. All columns can be sorted by clicking in the column header above each type of statistic.

What the columns in the Rules Panel mean

Rule#

This column indicates the ID number of the rule and also contains a small icon which serves to indicate the masking rule type.

Rule Controller 
Substitution rule 
Shuffle rule 
Insertion rule 
Command rule 
Row-Internal Synchronization rule 
Table-Internal Synchronization rule 
Table-To-Table Synchronization rule 
Foreign Key Enable Rule 
Foreign Key Disable Rule 
Trigger Enable Rule 
Trigger Disable Rule

The rule block and ID number are displayed as a sequence of digits in the form XX-YYYY. The XX value is the rule block and the YYYY component is the rule ID. The ID of the rule is not particularly significant and serves only to provide a unique identification number for the rule. The rule block, however, is of considerable significance since it controls the execution order of the rule. The Data Masker software is multi-threaded and can run up to eight rules in parallel. It is common to have a situation in which certain rules cannot run simultaneously and must run sequentially one after the other as a chain. The rule block value (along with dependency relationships) control the execution sequence. Please see the Rule Blocks and Dependencies help page to understand how to explicitly control the execution order of the masking rules.

Rule Type

This column names the type of rule and will be an abbreviated form of the full rule type in order to minimize display space.

Status

This area lists the current execution status of the rule. The currently executing rules are always listed as running. A Rule Controller with an actively executing masking rule will also be shown as running until all of the masking rules it contains have been processed.

Rows to Process

This column indicates the number of rows which will be processed by the rule. This value will be blank or zero until the rule has begun to execute and, for larger tables, can be seen to increment as the Data Masker software determines which rows are eligible for masking according to the rules configuration. Be aware that Where Clause or Sampling options can restrict the number of masked rows to less than the total number of rows in the target table. In such cases, only the number of rows to be masked will be counted in the Rows to Process column. Some rules, such as Command rules cannot return information regarding the number of rows they will process and will display a blank value in this field.

Rows Processed

This column indicates the number of rows processed by the rule. If a rule is currently executing, this display will be updated periodically. When the masking rule has completed, this figure will indicate the total number of rows processed and it will be equal to the value in the Rows to Process column. Some rules, such as Command rules cannot return information regarding their progress. In these cases, this field will be blank.

Rows/Sec

Masking rules will execute at a variety of rates depending on the rule type, database configuration and a large number of other factors. This field provides an indication of how many rows each rule is processing per second. The value is derived from the other statistics via the formula: (Rows Processed)/(Time in Seconds). If the Time in Seconds field is less than 1 then a value of 1 second is assumed. Since fractional seconds are not tracked, this can make the calculated rows per second value seem much lower than it really is for small amounts of data. Note that the time taken to acquire the Rows to Process value is included in the calculation.

Cols/Sec

Some types of masking rule (such as Substitution rules) have the ability to operate on multiple columns within the same rule. This provides a dramatic speed improvement. The Cols/Sec information is the Rows/Sec value multiplied by the number of columns the rule is masking.

Run Time (sec)

This is the total run time in seconds for the rule. This field will update continuously while a rule is executing.

% Done

This field represents the ratio of Rows Processed to the Rows to Process field expressed as a percentage.

Errors

Each line describing a rule has a button in the Errors column. If an error occurred during execution, this button will change to a red X indicating that the rule had errors. Pressing on the button will launch a diagnostic form which displays diagnostic and debugging information regarding the error.