Proximus Achieves Testing Excellence with Improved Efficiency and Speed

Proximus' Results, At-a-Glance

Challenge: Weeks‑Long Refreshes Were Blocking Releases

As a 24/7 telecom provider, Proximus relies on accurate, production‑like data to keep development and testing moving. But delivering that data was slow and disruptive. Refreshing test environments could take up to two weeks and required taking backups of production databases, which meant planned downtime. Teams worked through entire weekends, yet testers still waited more than a week before they could begin validating new releases.

Data masking added another layer of complexity. Different teams applied masking in different ways, leading to inconsistent results and poor data integrity. As databases grew and schemas changed, masking had to be repeated over and over, consuming more time and effort. The result was delayed releases, blocked testers, and rising operational strain.

Solution: Automating Refreshes and Masking at Scale

Proximus adopted Perforce Delphix to remove test data as a bottleneck. With Delphix, the team automated data refreshes and standardized data masking across environments. What once took weeks could now be completed in a single weekend.

Delphix also enabled data virtualization, allowing Proximus to deliver full‑fidelity environments without duplicating massive datasets. One centralized team now manages all supported platforms—including Oracle, SQL Server, Salesforce, Couchbase, and Sybase—through a single tool.

Developers and testers gain self‑service access to data, along with features like rewind and snapshots, giving them confidence to experiment and recover quickly if something goes wrong.

Results: From 2 Weeks to 1 Weekend for 60 Applications

With Delphix, Proximus transformed its non‑production data operations. The team can now refresh 60 applications in one weekend, dramatically accelerating release cycles. Data masking time dropped from weeks to about a day and a half, even as data volumes continued to grow.

Data virtualization helped Proximus save 1.6 petabytes of storage, significantly reducing infrastructure costs. By shifting defect detection earlier in the development lifecycle, the organization also reduced production issues, lowering costs and improving software quality. Most importantly, developers and testers get the data they need, when they need it, without disrupting production systems.

Summary: Speed Up Telecom Teams

See how telecom teams deliver test data in minutes, not weeks. Explore how Delphix supports large‑scale refreshes, compliant masking, and self‑service for DevOps teams. Request a demo today to get started.

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Full Transcript

Proximus is a telecom company in Belgium that provides mobile phone, fixed phone, internet, and television services.

The telecom business runs 24/7. We primarily serve the test management team. It’s very important that testers can continue testing and are not blocked because they don’t have the data or have the wrong data.

In the beginning, refreshes took two weeks. The refresh and storage teams first had to take a backup of the production databases, which meant production was down for a period of time. I had to work from Friday morning until Monday evening, and testers then had to wait more than one week before they could start new releases.

Another challenge was masking. Because everyone did their own masking in different ways, data integrity was not consistent. As databases grew larger, every schema change required masking again and again, which took significant time.

With Delphix, our refreshes are much faster. In one weekend, we can refresh 60 applications.
Delphix also helped us with masking, reducing the process from two weeks to about a day and a half. We use Delphix for virtualization, which reduced infrastructure costs through storage compression. We saved 1.6 petabytes of storage.

If you fix a defect in the development environment, it costs almost nothing. If you fix it in production, it costs ten times more. By implementing Delphix and shifting left, we reduced defects significantly.

We support Oracle, SQL Server, Salesforce, Couchbase, and Sybase—all in one tool, managed by one team. Developers and testers now go to a single team, not separate database teams.
Delphix provides many useful capabilities, such as self‑service, rewind, and snapshots.

Developers are more confident because they know they can always go back.

I’m proud that we can deliver what developers need.

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