How to Prepare for an Oracle to PostgreSQL Migration
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PostgreSQL is an open-source relational database management system that supports complex queries, performs well with large data stores, and facilitates several concurrent users. PostgreSQL was built in the C programming language and it supports other languages, including .Net, C/C++, Python, Java, PHP, and Perl.
Its proven architecture, reliability, and performance make PostgreSQL a popular option. PostgreSQL is an ACID-compliant database management system, which means it guarantees valid database transactions even if there are unexpected network errors and other disruptions (e.g. power failures).
Read on to find out why many organizations are migrating to PostgreSQL from Oracle. You’ll also get some tips to help achieve a smooth migration.
Why Migrate from Oracle to PostgreSQL?
The following are some of the important features of PostgreSQL.
Open Source
Oracle is a commercial database management system for which you need to buy a costly license. Additionally, you might need to pay extra for partitioning and high availability.
In recent years, open source use has exploded. Many organizations use ready-made open source software, libraries, and frameworks as cost-efficient and powerful alternatives to proprietary code.
Research from 2018 found that 72 percent of companies use open source for non-commercial or internal reasons. PostgreSQL is powerful, functional, and secure, and completely free. Its license is the liberal PostgreSQL License, which is similar to BSD and MIT open source licenses.
Widespread Cloud Support
The latest statistics show that 68 percent of IT departments now use public cloud infrastructure and services provided by companies like AWS, Google Cloud, and IBM. PostgreSQL has widespread support by all major public cloud vendors.
Cheaper Support
Not only will you save on licensing costs by switching to PostgreSQL; support costs are much cheaper too. Because PostgreSQL is open source and widely popular, it is supported by a huge community of developers who contribute to and maintain the project.
The community can assist with many issues for free, documentation is extensive, and there’s even a Slack channel. Oracle support costs are 22 percent of your initial license charge and are payable annually. The cheaper support and the open source nature of PostgreSQL give it a much lower total cost of ownership than Oracle, which is helpful for small- to medium-sized businesses.
Tips to Prepare for Oracle to PostgreSQL Migration
Follow these tips for a smooth transition.
Know the Business Impact in Advance
Migrating from one database management system to another is bound to come with some headaches and complexities. The IT migration team has a responsibility to minimize the impact of migration on ongoing business processes and users of business data.
Evaluate the business impact clearly—how much downtime will the migration necessitate and how much downtime can the organization cope with? You also need to know how the migration will impact on IT security aspects like monitoring, alerting, and responding to data loss or leak incidents. Minimizing the business impact could mean scheduling the bulk of the migration phase on an evening or weekend when people and processes are least likely to be affected.
Use Tools
Organizations migrating their database systems must meet many challenges that are technical and time-consuming. Tools can provide invaluable time-saving capabilities for different aspects of migration. There are dedicated Oracle to PostgreSQL migration tools that help move database objects, definitions, indexes in minutes.
Other tools like the open source ora2pg can replicate Oracle data into a PostgreSQL database without requiring Oracle database knowledge. Tools can also generate migration reports based on running test migrations, and they tell you the time expected for each migration job to complete.
Take a Measured Approach
After you’ve made the decision to migrate, it’s tempting to get started with your most mission-critical databases and applications and move them from Oracle to the new PostgreSQL environment. However, it’s prudent to take a more measured approach to grips with. This is similar to migrating to the cloud, or between cloud environments, which requires a well-considered strategy.
Before rushing into things, sort through your Oracle databases and apps and determine the migration complexity for each based on technical difficulty and processes involved or affected. Migrate the most straightforward databases and apps first to the PostgreSQL environment to get some quick wins and increase confidence in the migration project.
Applications and the databases paired with them are good initial migration candidates if they have robust testing and QA because it’s easier to validate success. Apps that rely on Oracle-specific database features need workarounds and you should migrate them later in the project timeline.
Retrain Employees
One of the main barriers to migrating any business tool is resistance to change among existing employees. Your staff are already familiar with using Oracle and any change can seem daunting.
It is crucial to provide employees with additional training in using PostgreSQL well in advance of the migration going live. You need to equip teams and individuals with the appropriate knowledge for performing their roles in the new environment. You can try to overcome initial resistance by highlighting the major shift towards using open source code happening in companies of all sizes.
Closing Thoughts
Migrating your database management system is a huge undertaking, but for many organizations and companies the reduced cost of ownership, open source model, and excellent performance of PostgreSQL are worth the challenge.
To migrate successfully, equip your team with the tools and knowledge they need and take a carefully measured approach. Because the PostgreSQL community might not be fast enough to respond to issues during migration, you can consider using commercial (paid) support options for quicker response times.
