I've never been comfortable with production data on development environments. I've had to do it in the past, and it never sat well with me. Maybe it's because of the security concerns. I'm working on making some scripts that can generate "realistic-looking" test data sets that can populate my dev databases. A few months ago I created a 2M record table of "personal information" including randomly-generated SSNs and addresses using a little information I found through Google searches. I hope to use it for future projects. If somebody gets hold of "Jim Dandy" with the SSN "001-11-0101", I'm not gonna lose too much sleep over it. 😉
Just yesterday I finished a project that creates random "orders" and all I have to do is pass a number to a SP and it does all the work. It's one of those things that will take a little time to build, goes into my "scripts toolbox", and makes my life easier down the road. *CROSSES FINGERS*
You don't want to send emails from dev during some testing to 16 million customers - that could be a bit embarrassing.
- CirquedeSQLeil
I had something like that happen to me once in my early years. I didn't clear out a mail server outbox before I left work one night for (what I was told) was a development system. Somebody else turned on the mail server when I wasn't there and out went the test messages. I think my face dropped when they told me that morning after I came to work. Ugh.
- Mike M