Writing output to Tonic Ephemeral
Last updated
Last updated
Only available for PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, and Oracle.
Not compatible with upsert.
Not compatible with Preserve Destination or Incremental table modes.
Tonic Ephemeral is a separate Tonic.ai product that allows you to create temporary databases to use for testing and demos. For more information about Ephemeral, go to the .
If Ephemeral supports your workspace database type, then you can write the destination data to a snapshot in Ephemeral. You can then use the snapshot to start Ephemeral databases.
To write the transformed data to Ephemeral, under Destination Settings, click Ephemeral Database.
Structural can write the data snapshot to either Ephemeral Cloud or to a self-hosted instance of Ephemeral. By default, Structural writes the data snapshot to Ephemeral Cloud.
All workspaces on the same self-hosted Structural instance or in the same Structural Cloud organization must write to the same instance of Ephemeral. When you change the Ephemeral output configuration in one workspace, it is automatically changed in other workspaces that write to Ephemeral.
For Ephemeral Cloud, Structural writes the snapshot to the account for the user who runs the data generation job. If that user has an Ephemeral account on Ephemeral Cloud, then Structural uses that account. If the user does not have an account, then Structural creates a two-week Ephemeral free trial account for the user.
Note that if you are on a self-hosted instance of Ephemeral, then you must always provide an Ephemeral API key.
To write a snapshot to Ephemeral Cloud:
Click Tonic Ephemeral cloud.
If you are on a self-hosted instance of Structural:
In the API Key field, provide an Ephemeral API key from your Ephemeral account.
To test the connection, click Test Connection.
To write the snapshot to a self-hosted instance of Ephemeral:
Click Tonic Ephemeral self-hosted.
In the API Key field, provide an Ephemeral API key from your Ephemeral account. Structural writes the snapshot to the Ephemeral account that is associated with the API key.
In the Tonic Ephemeral URL field, provide the URL to your self-hosted Ephemeral instance.
To test the connection, click Test Connection.
For Oracle, you select the base image to use when it creates the data snapshot.
If you are writing to Ephemeral Cloud, then you must use the Oracle 23c base image that comes with Ephemeral. This image has the following limitations:
A maximum of 12GB of user data
A maximum of 2CPU cores and 2GB of RAM
If you are writing to a self-hosted instance of Ephemeral, then you can also select a custom image that you created in Ephemeral.
If you do not configure any advanced settings, then:
The snapshot uses the same name as the workspace, and has no description.
The snapshot size allocation is determined by the source data size.
Structural discards the temporary Ephemeral database that is created during the data generation.
To change any of these settings, click Advanced settings.
By default, the snapshot name uses the workspace name.
When you run data generation, if a snapshot with the same name already exists in Ephemeral, then Structural overwrites that snapshot with the new snapshot.
Under Advanced settings:
In the Snapshot name field, provide the name of the snapshot. The snapshot name can use the following placeholder values to help identify the snapshot:
{workspaceName} - Inserts the name of the workspace.
{workspaceId} - Inserts the identifier of the workspace.
{jobId} - Inserts the identifier of the data generation job that created the snapshot.
{timestamp} - Inserts the timestamp when the snapshot was created.
Including the job ID or timestamp ensures that a data generation job does not overwrite a previous snapshot.
Optionally, in the Snapshot description field, provide a longer description of the snapshot.
By default, the resources used for the snapshot are based on the size of the source data.
For source data that is 25 GB or less, Nano is used.
For source data larger than 25 GB, Micro is used.
To select a specific option:
Toggle Custom pod resources to the on position.
From the dropdown list, select the option to use for the combination of vCPUs and memory:
Nano - 0.125 vCPU with 0.5 GB RAM
Micro - 0.5 vCPU with 2 GB RAM
Small - 1 vCPU with 4 GB RAM
Medium - 2 vCPU with 8 GB RAM
Large - 4 vCPU with 16 GB RAM
By default, the Ephemeral size allocation for the snapshot is based on the size of the source data.
To instead provide a custom data size allocation, under Advanced settings:
Toggle Custom data size allocation to the on position.
In the field, enter the size allocation in gigabytes.
When Structural creates the Ephemeral snapshot, it creates a temporary Ephemeral database.
By default, Structural deletes that database when the data generation is complete.
To instead keep the database, under Advanced settings, toggle Keep database active in Tonic Ephemeral after data generation to the on position.
For a MySQL or PostgreSQL workspace, you can provide a customization file that helps to ensure that the temporary Ephemeral database is configured correctly.
To provide the customization details:
Toggle Use custom configuration to the on position.
In the text area, paste the contents of the customization file.
For information about how to create and manage custom images for Oracle, go to .
