Request a Data Refresh for Non-Production Environments¶
Alation provides a data refresh service for non-production (dev) instances to ensure your testing environment accurately reflects your production data. This topic outlines the request process, downtime requirements, and the shared responsibilities between Alation Support and Customer system administrators.
In this topic:
Service Overview¶
You can request a data refresh for your non-production instance once per calendar quarter.
Important
A data refresh requires approximately six hours of downtime on the non-production instance and one to two hours of downtime on the production instance to take a backup. During this window, your non-production instance will be completely unavailable to ensure data consistency and integrity.
To schedule a refresh, please submit a request to Alation Support. Alation Support will coordinate all refresh and post-refresh activities with you directly through your open Support ticket.
Prerequisites¶
Before the refresh begins, customers must complete the following items to ensure a successful transition and to protect existing configurations:
1. Object count audit¶
Request a count of the objects on your current non-production (dev) instance. This data can be requested within your refresh Support ticket to help verify the environment post-refresh.
2. Capture Feature Configurations¶
Manually take screenshots of your current Feature Configurations from the Alation UI on the non-production (Dev) instance. Since feature-specific parameters are not automatically preserved or modified during a refresh, these screenshots are vital for manual restoration if needed.
3. Verify backup availability¶
In the event of a refresh failure or the need for a rollback, data is restored from existing backups. Ensure you are aware that backups are available from one hour prior to the refresh up to 30 days in the past.
Post-Refresh Implementation Workflow¶
A data refresh requires coordinated technical configuration once the data transfer is complete. Some tasks are handled by Alation, while others must be performed by your System Administrators.
Alation Support Actions¶
After the data is refreshed, Alation Support performs the following technical validations and configurations on the non-production instance:
Creates a user with the Server Admin role and shares credentials securely with the customer. Support will also verify if built-in authentication should be enabled.
Disables the Logical Metadata Service (LMS) and restarts the uWSGI process.
Performs a delta analysis to identify any data inconsistencies between the Production and the refreshed Non-Production instance.
Provides an audit sheet detailing changes to instance configuration parameters. This includes:
The initial and final values for the changed parameters.
Descriptions for each parameter.
Note
Alation Support doesn’t modify feature-specific configurations during a refresh. Feature-related parameter changes must be requested via a separate Support ticket for both Production and Non-Production environments.
Tests Alation Search to ensure all searchable object types correctly appear in results.
Renames the Agent and updates its description after the Customer Administrator reinstalls and re-syncs the Agent.
Customer Administrator Actions¶
Once Alation Support completes their checklist, the Customer system administrator must perform these required configurations to restore the environment functionality:
1. Reconfigure Authentication¶
Because the refresh overwrites local metadata with Production data, you must point the environment back to your non-production identity provider.
Update the Service Provider (SP) and Identity Provider (IdP) metadata.
Update the SAML configuration. Use the information in Configure Authentication with SAML from Admin Settings to update the authentication configuration.
2. Reinstall and Re-sync the Alation Agent¶
You must reinstall and re-sync the Alation Agent associated with your non-production instance. You don’t need to provision a new EC2 instance. You can reuse the existing one.
Perform these steps on the EC2 instance where the Non-Production Alation Agent is hosted:
Reinstall and reconnect the Alation Agent.
Perform steps 1 through 3 of the Agent installation guide Reinstall and Reconnect the Agent.
Renew the Agent’s certificate.
After reinstallation, follow step 4 of the same guide Renew the Agent’s Certificates.
Re-sync the Agent.
Follow the steps in Resync the Agent.
Verify.
Verify that a Success message appears in the Alation UI once the synchronization is complete.
From the Agent’s EC2 instance, verify the connectors’ state using (
docker ps -a) command.Ensure that the name and description of the Agent have been updated by Alation Support.
Support During Refresh¶
If you encounter issues during the post-refresh configuration, please contact Alation Support via the original data refresh ticket. Our team is available to assist with any technical blockers during this window.