TiDB Data Governance for Security and Compliance with DataSunrise

TiDB is a distributed SQL database built for hybrid transactional and analytical workloads (HTAP). As data volumes and regulatory pressure grow, governance becomes essential—not just for compliance, but for operational integrity and trust.

This guide shows how to govern data in TiDB environments using native tools, identifies the remaining gaps, and explains how DataSunrise helps you bridge them with minimal overhead.

What Is Data Governance in TiDB?

Data governance ensures that your TiDB environment operates securely, efficiently, and in line with regulations. It covers access control, audit trails, backup policies, sensitive data handling, and policy enforcement—across distributed TiKV/TiFlash nodes and multi-cloud environments.

Why Distributed Governance Is Hard

TiDB's architecture brings high performance and elasticity—but also new risks:

• Data is spread across nodes and regions
• There's no built-in masking or classification
• Audit features require the Enterprise or Cloud Dedicated tiers

To comply with laws like GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS, teams must combine native tools with external governance layers.

Governance Strategy in Three Stages

Stage 1: Baseline Governance with Native TiDB

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

TiDB supports MySQL-compatible RBAC:

CREATE ROLE 'auditor';
GRANT SELECT ON finance_db.* TO 'auditor';
GRANT 'auditor' TO 'compliance_user'@'%';

For more details, see official RBAC documentation.

Audit Logging (Enterprise & Cloud Dedicated)

TiDB v7.1+ supports structured audit logging:

SET GLOBAL tidb_audit_enabled = 1;

CALL audit_log_create_filter('ddl_events', '{"filter":[{"class":["QUERY_DDL"]}]}');
CALL audit_log_create_rule('ddl_events', 'user@%', true);

SET GLOBAL tidb_audit_log_redacted = ON;

Log Search Across Cluster Nodes

Use the following SQL to inspect audit messages from TiDB, TiKV, and PD nodes across the cluster:

SELECT * FROM information_schema.cluster_log
WHERE message LIKE '%ddl%' AND time > NOW() - INTERVAL 1 HOUR;

For details on querying logs across TiDB nodes, refer to the CLUSTER_LOG system view documentation.

Backup and Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR)

Use TiDB BR tool to back up and restore by timestamp:

tiup br log start --task-name=pitr --pd="${PD_IP}:2379" --storage 's3://bucket/logs'
tiup br restore point --restored-ts '2025-07-10 12:00:00' --storage='s3://bucket/logs'

See the official Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR) guide for full setup and usage instructions.

Stage 2: Identify Gaps and Risks

Governance Feature	Community Edition	Enterprise/Cloud Edition	Notes
Structured Audit Logs	❌	✅ (v7.1+)	Not available in Community Edition
Data Masking	❌	❌	Requires external tooling
Real-Time Alerting	❌	❌	Manual integration needed
Sensitive Data Discovery	Manual	Manual	No built-in scanning or tagging
Visual Rule Management	❌	❌	SQL-based only, no UI

Stage 3: Complete Governance with DataSunrise

While TiDB offers strong foundational tools, it stops short of full compliance automation. That's where DataSunrise comes in.

DataSunrise is a database security platform that acts as a smart proxy or sniffer layer between your applications and TiDB. It operates without requiring changes to your TiDB configuration or application code.

It brings governance features that TiDB lacks:

• Automated data discovery of PII, PHI, and financial fields
• Dynamic data masking based on roles, IPs, or query patterns
• Real-time alerting via Slack, email, or SIEM tools
• Compliance reporting with exportable audit logs
• No-code governance via a visual policy editor and dashboards

Used across finance, healthcare, and SaaS sectors, DataSunrise helps teams achieve compliance with minimal manual effort.

The sections below explain how it enhances TiDB’s built-in governance capabilities.

Sensitive Data Discovery

Use Data Discovery tools to automatically scan and classify:

• Personally Identifiable Information (PII)
• Protected Health Information (PHI)
• Payment details

Dashboards reveal sensitive fields and schema locations.

Dynamic Data Masking

Masking is applied in real-time via proxy and supports:

• Partial, full, regex-based, or hash masking
• Role-, user-, or IP-based access rules
• No changes required to TiDB or app logic

Real-Time Alerts and Audit Reporting

Integrate with Slack, Teams, email, or SIEM systems:

• Alerting rules for suspicious activity
• Compliance reports in PDF or CSV
• Audit trail export with bind variable support

Centralized Visual Interface

Use DataSunrise’s Compliance Manager to:

• Build policies without writing SQL
• Monitor all traffic through a unified proxy
• Visualize data access, rule coverage, and violations

Conclusion

TiDB offers a solid compliance foundation with access controls, logging, and backup. But alone, it lacks the depth needed for modern, auditable governance programs.

By pairing TiDB with DataSunrise, teams gain:

• Automated PII/PHI discovery
• Dynamic masking at query time
• Centralized alerting and reporting
• Full visibility across hybrid environments

For organizations navigating GDPR, HIPAA, SOX, or PCI DSS, this combination turns TiDB into a fully governed platform—ready to scale securely and compliantly.