Ghost Database are virtual databases that can consist of one or many tables from different database servers and database server types. It can even include tables constructed from CSV files or, when using Ghost Files, tables constructed from unstructured files. This allows for advanced functionality such as doing an SQL JOIN between a table on a Oracle Database server, a table on a MySQL database server, a CSV file and a collection of PDF files.
Ghost Databases are also used to assign policy to. You can assign different user groups from your IAM to each Ghost Database to give precise access. You can also configure any transformation policies per each Ghost Database, such as obfuscation or redaction.
Adding a new Ghost Database
Navigate to the "Add" tab. Provide a "Ghost Database Name" and optionally a "Ghost Database Description"
Note that the Ghost Database Name provided here is also the database name you will use to connect to using SQL
Select a data source from "Available Data Sources" and click "Link Connection". This add the data source.
Click "Link Table" and select the "Schema Name" and "Table Name" you want to add to the Ghost Database. Dymium will now discover what columns are present in this table and will pull sample data to determine what kind of data is in the table
This screen shows all the columns in the table, the type of data in the columns (like text, numeric, etc), and Dymium will add comments to each column describing the type of data represented, as well as classifying the data (such as Medcial Information, Name, SSN, Address, etc). It will also generate a "Table Description".
Lastly the final column shows the actions possible for each table column. You can either manually configure each column to "Deny, Allow, Obfuscate or Redact" , or you can select an access level to fill in all columns at once.
Click "Apply"
You can change the Comments and Table Description manually as well. Or you can regenerate the Table Description by clicking "Generate Smart Description" and providing custom instructions.
The comments and table description here are used when using GhostAI to ask natural questions of your data, or when using GhostAPI to use natural questions to generate API endpoints
Clicking on a column name allows you to rename the column name as how it shows in the Ghost Database. This does not change the column name on the original source database
Clicking on Type allows you to change the column type, such as numeric to text. Note that not all column types can be changed to all other column types.
Your table has now been added to the Ghost Database. You can keep adding other tables from the same source or other sources as required. When you are done with adding the tables required, you can click "Generate Smart Description" to have Dymium generate a description for you. Or you can manually add a description. Click "Apply"
Clicking on schema names and table names allows you to change the schema name and table name in the Ghost Database. Note that this does not alter the schema name or table name in the original source database in any way
This will automatically take you to the "Assign Groups" tab. Before a Ghost Database can be accessed, it needs one or more groups assigned to it. These groups generally come from your internal IAM or IdP such as Okta, Entra ID or others.
Click the "Please edit to assign groups and enable user access" link.
Select the group(s) you want to give access to this Ghost Database to and click "Apply"
Your Ghost Database is now ready to be accessed
Editing a Ghost Database
To edit a Ghost Database, navigate to the "Edit Ghost Databases" and select the Ghost Database you want to edit. Here you make any changes such as adding or removing tables in the same way as adding a new new Ghost Database
You can also clone a Ghost Database by clicking "Clone" at the bottom. This will create a new Ghost Database with all the same configuration as the original one, but with a new name. You can then edit the newly cloned Ghost Database