Making production data accessible to developers via masking We want to provide developers in our organization masked data from production to help troubleshoot production issues. 
What would be the best way to approach it?
I've read this article https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/security/dynamic-data-masking?view=sql-server-ver15  

But it seems to take a different approach from what I've envisioned. My idea was to have a separate database server that is replicated from the production database, and somehow mask the data during replication so that the real data will never reach the replicated database server. That way we don't have to have special security considerations about how to store and treat the replicated database server. 

Is it a reasonable approach?
Is it a reasonable approach?


Yes.  That's what the (removed) "Static Data Masking" component in SSMS did.  A simple way to implement this is to copy data from production using an identity for which Dynamic Data Masking is enforced on the production database, using the Copy Database Wizard or a custom script.