GT Datamaker 4.10 - Unable to connect to Azure SQL gtrep database

Products

• CA Test Data Manager (Data Finder / Grid Tools)

Issue/Introduction

TDM is hosted in an Azure Windows Server 2019 Server, and the gtrep repository database is also hosted on an Azure SQL server.

We validated login credentials to the database server.  The ODBC connection parameters test successfully using the ODBC Administration utility, but when we attempt to use the ODBC connection for GT Datamaker, the connection fails with the following error:

Cannot connect using supplied values.

Connection:
Profile: <gtrep_profile_name>
odbc: 18456
SQLSTATE - 28000
[MIcrosoft][ODBC Driver 18 for SQL Server][SQL Server]Login failed for user <gtrep_user>

Environment

Release : GT Datamaker 4.10.1001.0

Cause

To help troubleshoot the ODBC connection failure, we enabled tracing from the ODBC Administration Utility - Tracing tab

Looking at the SQL.log that was defined in the Tracing tab, we see the following error:

DIAG [28000] [Microsoft][ODBC Driver 18 for SQL Server][SQL Server] Login failed for user <gtrep_user>. (18456)
DIAG [01500] [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Invalid connection string attribute (0)

 

Resolution

 

Since TDM doesn't store any of the ODCB connection parameters other than the password used for the connection, we suspect that the invalid connection string attribute is related to the password. Either the password uses special characters that are getting interpreted incorrectly, or the password length is too long.

We reviewed the special charters used in the password, and those seem to be commonly used special characters, and were found not to be the issue. Looking at the length of the password, we found it is 30 characters long. We shortened the password to less than 24 characters, and the resolved the issue. GT Datamaker is now able to connect to the gtrep repository database.  

Additional Information

Officially, we do not support the gtrep Repository Database on Azure SQL. 

The Repository Database requirements are as follows:

Database Requirements

Test Data Manager requires a repository to store product metadata. You can also use the repository to store test data. The repository can be on the same server as Test Data Manager or can be a remote server. If you use a remote server, ensure that the server has the memory requirement as recommended in the Hardware Requirements section.

For production environments, we recommend a dedicated database server for the repository that is backed up and monitored.

Test Data Manager supports the following databases for the repository:

Database	Datamaker	TDM Portal
Microsoft SQL Server 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019	Yes	Yes
Microsoft SQL Server Express 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019	Yes	Yes
Oracle 11g, 12c, 18c, 19c	Yes	Yes
Oracle 18c XE	Yes	Yes
Oracle RAC	Yes	No

For more information regarding TDM System Requirements, see https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/ca-enterprise-software/devops/test-data-management/4-10/installing/install-test-data-manager/system-requirements.html#concept.dita_a5bb631567e0ae7aead6971e0b45c6ab14a1bb93_databaserequirements