Method for populating spanner databases in test environments

A method of populating a test environment for testing of a production database comprising a plurality of tables, the method comprising:

• constructing, by one or more processors, a directed acyclic graph (DAG), wherein each of the plurality of tables is represented by a respective node of the DAG and schema-level constraints of the plurality of tables are represented by edges of the DAG;
• topologically ordering, by the one or more processors, the plurality of tables of the production database into a sorted table according to the DAG;
• dividing, by the one or more processors, the sorted table into a plurality of portions based on table size information about the plurality of tables;
• assigning, by the one or more processors, each of the portions of the sorted table to a respective one of a plurality of data generators;
• instructing, by the one or more processors, the plurality of data generators to randomly generate test data in parallel;
• and
• populating, by the one or more processors, the randomly generated test data when it satisfies the schema-level constraints of the plurality of tables to the test environment according to the topological ordering of the plurality of tables.