Simplifying Oracle Database Migrations

Danny Arnold ,  Worldwide Competitive Enablement Team

As part of my role in IBM Information Management, as a technical advocate for our DB2 for LUW(Linux , Unix, Windows) product set, I often enter into discussions with clients that are currently using Oracle Database.

With the unique technologies delivered in the DB2 10 releases (10.1 and 10.5), such as

• temporal tables to allow queries against data at a specific point-in-time,
• row and column access control (RCAC) to provide granular row and column level security that extends the traditional RDBMS table privileges for additional data security, pureScale for near continuous availability database clusters,
• database partitioning feature (DPF) for parallel query processing against large data sets (100s of TBs), and
• the revolutionary new BLU Acceleration technology to allow analytic workloads to use column-organized tables to deliver performance orders of magnitude faster than conventional row-organized tables,

many clients like the capabilities and technology that DB2 for LUW provides.

However, a key concern is the level of effort to migrate an existing Oracle Database environment to DB2 .  Although DB2  provides Oracle compatibility and has had this capability built into the database engine since the DB2 9.7 release, there is still confusion on the part of clients as to what this Oracle compatibility means in terms of a migration effort.  Today, DB2 provides a native Oracle PL/SQL procedural language compiler, support for Oracle specific ANSII SQL language extensions, Oracle SQL functions, and Oracle specific data types (such as NUMBER and VARCHAR2).  This compatibility layer within DB2 allows many Oracle Database environments to be migrated to DB2 with minimal effort. Many stored procedures and application SQL that are used against Oracle Database can run unchanged against DB2 reducing both the migration effort and migration risk, as the application did not have to be modified. So the testing phase is much less effort than for a changed or heavily modified application SQL and stored procedures. Although the migration effort seems relatively straight forward, there are still questions that come up with clients and there is the need for a clear explanation of the Oracle Database to DB2 migration process.

Recently, a new solution brief entitled “Simplify your Oracle database migrations” published by IBM Data Management , provides a clear explanation of how DB2 and the PureData for Transactions appliance built upon DB2 pureScale can deliver a clustered database environment for migrating an Oracle database to DB2.  This brief provides a clear and concise overview of what an Oracle to DB2 migration requires and the assistance and tooling available from IBM to make a migration straightforward for a client’s environment.  The brief provides a concise description of the IBM tooling, IBM Database Conversion Workbench, which is available to assist a client in moving their tables, stored procedures, and data from Oracle to DB2.

The fact that DB2 for LUW makes migrating from Oracle a task that takes minimal effort, due to the Oracle compatibility built into DB2, is complemented by the PureData for Transactions system. PureData for Transactions provides an integrated, pre-built DB2 pureScale environment that allows a pureScale instance and a DB2 clustered database to be ready for use in a matter of hours. This helps simplify the implementation and configuration experience for the client. Combining the ease of Oracle migration to DB2 with the rapid implementation and configuration possible with PureData for Transactions, provides a winning combination for a client looking for a more cost effective and available alternative to the Oracle Database.