Can data from the production environment be used for unit testing?

Yes - Absolutely.

Using MettleCI's Data Interception capability a developer can capture *any* data (to which their development environment has access) as a reusable/deployable DataStage Unit Test.

Warning

Our only recommendation is that you give careful consideration to the volume of data you build in to your Unit Tests. While there are no inherent limitations on the value of data our Unit Test functionality can handle, we question the philosophy of customers who want to repurpose Unit Testing as Performance testing.