Cost Savings and ROI When Moving from Oracle to PostgreSQL
Discover the cost benefits of database migration. Learn how to address Oracle compatibility issues with the right tools, services, and support.
The Case for PostgreSQL over Oracle
Discover the benefits of Oracle-to-PostgreSQL database migration
More and more organizations recognize the advantages of moving from Oracle to PostgreSQL, signaling a strategic shift from legacy databases to open source solutions. Below are the main considerations that have encouraged this trend in database migration:
- Cost reduction
The primary benefit of moving to PostgreSQL is cost. Oracle is associated with high commercial licensing costs, such as substantial yearly fees and additional charges for advanced features like partitioning and high availability. Moving to open source PostgreSQL, which has no licensing fees, helps provide financial relief and enables companies to allocate resources toward other growth and innovation. - Flexibility and freedom
Because PostgreSQL is open source, organizations can avoid vendor lock-in. PostgreSQL also supports many features and extensions so businesses can tailor their databases to meet evolving requirements. - Performance improvements
PostgreSQL is praised for its speed with read-intensive applications and offers robust performance even under high workloads. Organizations migrating to PostgreSQL can expect improved performance and scalability, making it an excellent fit for growing data and user bases. - Community support and resources
The active PostgreSQL community ensures regular updates, thorough documentation, and a wealth of online resources for troubleshooting and development. Unlike Oracle’s commercial support, PostgreSQL lets you become part of a progressive and collaborative environment, where you can feel genuinely supported and able to give back. - Enhanced customization capabilities
PostgreSQL stands out for its extensibility and customizability. Organizations can define custom data types, functions, and operators to meet specific business needs, giving them the power to innovate without being constrained by the limitations of a proprietary system.
If your organization has a long-term vision to modernize infrastructure, remain competitive, and respond proactively to rapid changes in the technology landscape, PostgreSQL’s versatile, open source nature can support this vision – at a lower cost and with a solid ROI.
ROI When Moving to PostgreSQL
Study real-world examples of companies getting solid ROI with database migration
Besides cutting costs by avoiding licensing and maintenance fees, migrating to PostgreSQL also improves productivity and operational efficiency, accelerating ROI.
PostgreSQL’s advanced features, robust performance, and scalability allow organizations to handle more transactions concurrently, leading to faster application response times and improved user experiences. Organizations can also better leverage modern technologies and frameworks, such as cloud environments and containers, to innovate efficiently in response to changing market demands.
Here are some real-world cases where moving to EDB Postgres AI helped companies save more and improve their performance:
- USDA Forest Service
Stewarding more than 600 million acres of US forestland, the USDA Forest Service relied on Oracle to manage its enormous geodatabase workloads. In 2018, however, they learned that the specific model they were using would no longer be supported, and they had to quickly migrate from Oracle with minimal impact on the business and at the lowest possible cost. They opted for EDB Postgres Advanced Server support and experienced greater than 70% improvement in performance at less than 30% of the cost. Geoprocessing tasks now take 25% of the time they did on Oracle, and they’re done on fewer, smaller, more cost-effective servers. - FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) protects some of the government’s most sensitive data and is prone to countless cybersecurity incidents. To ramp up their security, they had to migrate key applications away from their cumbersome Oracle infrastructure to Amazon Web Services (AWS). However, Oracle’s rigid licensing fees promised to make the process prohibitively expensive. Fortunately, the FBI team found EDB’s Postgres Advanced Server, which made migrating mission-critical applications and existing infrastructure into Postgres and AWS easy and cost-effective, with minimal disruption and no data loss. - Ericsson
The Content Management System for media and telecom giant Ericsson needed to keep pace with increasing demands for volume and performance. The company decided to re-architect the system, including replacing its legacy database with EDB Postgres Advanced Server to ensure scalability, improve performance, and reduce operational expenses. With EDB Postgres, Ericsson met its goals. The new system supported the content processing for two Ericsson customers, with more planned, and increased Ericsson’s title ingestion rate from five to 11 titles per minute – an increase of over 100% – at a low cost. - telegra
The next-generation German telecom provider telegra, specializing in delivering call center applications to businesses, redesigned its IT infrastructure for more agile service development in 2018. This included moving away from commercially licensed databases like Oracle and adopting EDB Postgres Advanced Server with EDB Postgres Distributed to improve reliability, reduce cost, and simplify operations. According to telegra’s head of IT, Postgres gave them greater security than any closed source database, plus greater flexibility to switch vendors and avoid “expensive, traditional, perpetual licensing.” - Metasphere
Telemetry leader Metasphere deploys IoT devices at scale and uses machine learning to automatically and remotely optimize water systems. They had been making plans to scale internationally but hit a roadblock when Oracle’s bias toward on-premise data centers drove costs astronomically higher. With the help of EDB, Metasphere managed to migrate instead from Oracle to PostgreSQL without pricey customer disruption. This allowed Metasphere to reduce licensing costs for themselves and their clients dramatically. They were also able to expand their market, offering both a lower-priced on-premises solution built on Postgres and a cloud-hosted offering for regulators and smaller organizations.
Compatibility and Migration Considerations
Review Oracle vs. EDB Postgres AI compatibility before database migration
Oracle and Postgres have both similarities and differences in their architectural designs, syntax, data types, and interoperability capabilities:
SQL Syntax
- SQL standard: Postgres uses a variant of the SQL standard known as the Postgres query language, while Oracle uses its own traditional SQL variant. Both systems share many SQL functionalities and adhere to ACID principles.
- Procedural languages: Postgres’ PL/pgSQL language has similarities with Oracle’s PL/SQL, such as block structures and variable declarations. However, there are significant differences, such as naming conventions and the absence of packages in Postgres, requiring schemas instead to organize functions.
Data Types
Data type mapping: Some Oracle data types do not have direct equivalents in Postgres. For example, Oracle's BFILE type, which references binary files outside the database, has no direct counterpart in Postgres. The FLOAT type in Oracle is essentially a fixed precision number, while Postgres’ FLOAT represents actual floating-point numbers. Oracle’s NUMBER type also maps to PostgreSQL's NUMERIC or DECIMAL, depending on precision needs.
Date and time types: Both databases offer date and time data types, but their implementations differ. Oracle combines date and time into its DATE type, while Postgres separates the concepts into distinct DATE and TIME types. Further, Oracle's TIMESTAMP WITH LOCAL TIME ZONE does not have a direct match in Postgres, necessitating careful mapping during migration.
Integration and ORM Support
Both Postgres and Oracle support various Object Relational Mapping (ORM) frameworks and ODBC, JDBC, OLEDB, and .NET library integrations. This compatibility facilitates seamless data exchange between different systems and applications, making it easier for developers to work with either database.
Compatibility with SQL Server
- Cross compatibility: Postgres functions well across various environments, including those using SQL Server. This is evidenced by the ability of Postgres to connect with SQL Server through various data access methods and integration frameworks, allowing organizations to mix and match databases to suit their needs.
- Similar features: While Postgres is an open source system and SQL Server is commercial, both provide essential database functionalities such as ACID compliance, support for views, foreign keys, triggers, joins, and stored procedures. PostgreSQL supports JSON (non-relational) and SQL (relational) querying, making it versatile for different data handling techniques.
Given the above, migrating from Oracle to Postgres requires careful planning and the use of effective tools and strategies to ensure a smooth transition:
Database Migration Tools
- AWS Schema Conversion Tool (AWS SCT)
AWS SCT is a popular tool that assists in migrating and converting database schemas from Oracle to Postgres. It automates the schema conversion process, reducing the manual effort to map Oracle data types and structures to Postgres equivalents. This tool helps identify compatibility issues and guides addressing them, making it particularly valuable during the initial migration phases. - Oracle SQL Developer
Oracle SQL Developer offers migration capabilities to transfer data and schema from Oracle databases to Postgres. It includes wizards to help automate the migration process and can generate scripts for setup in Postgres, ensuring that the necessary structural elements are accurately recreated. It also provides an intuitive user interface, enhancing the user experience during migration. - ora2pg
ora2pg is an open source tool specifically for migrating Oracle databases to Postgres. It automates the process of exporting Oracle data and importing it into Postgres, effectively handling schema conversion and data transfer in a streamlined manner. It supports a customization process, optimizing how data is handled during migration to cater to specific organization needs.
Migration Strategies
- Incremental migration
This strategy involves breaking down the migration into manageable phases or chunks. This method helps minimize the risk of downtime and allows for thorough testing and validation at each stage, ensuring that any issues can be identified and addressed promptly. - Phased migration
This strategy allows organizations to migrate less-critical applications before moving mission-critical ones. This helps you test the migration process and make necessary adjustments before executing the main migration, reducing the overall risk.
If you have multiple databases, you’ll want to take a phased approach to migrating. Starting with the easiest databases first allows for quick wins and builds momentum as you progress from simpler migrations to more complex ones, saving the most challenging databases for last.
Common Challenges and Solutions
- Data type conversion issues
Different databases may handle numeric types and string formats differently. For example, Oracle's number data types may be translated to Postgres’ numeric or double precision, which can lead to performance issues due to improper indexing configurations.
Solution: Analyze and adjust the data types during schema conversion to ensure they align correctly with Postgres’ requirements. - Application compatibility
This issue is especially critical with regard to stored procedures, triggers, and how NULL values are handled. Oracle automatically converts empty strings to NULL, while Postgres treats them as distinct values.
Solution: Review and modify the application code to accommodate these differences. Test all application functionalities, including data insertion and retrieval methods. - Performance optimization
Performance issues may emerge post-migration, particularly with query execution and data processing speeds. Postgres may require different indexing strategies and query optimizations than Oracle, which can affect performance.
Solution: Conduct comprehensive performance testing post-migration to identify bottlenecks. Leverage Postgres-specific indexing techniques, optimize configuration settings, and adjust query structures.
Cost Reduction Strategies with EDB Postgres AI
Learn about optimizing performance, reducing hardware needs, and other cost-saving measures
Leveraging Postgres can reduce database costs through various strategies to optimize performance, minimize hardware requirements, and implement efficient cost-saving measures.
Optimizing Performance
- Efficient indexing
Regularly analyze query patterns and update indexes to remove redundancy and ensure they align with current usage. For instance, composite indexes for frequently queried columns can enhance retrieval speeds, reducing resource use over time. - Query optimization
Rewrite queries to avoid unnecessary calculations and reduce complexity. The EXPLAIN ANALYZE command shows how Postgres executes queries, identifying bottlenecks or inefficiencies. Streamlining queries reduces execution time and minimizes CPU and memory usage, cutting costs. - Configuration tuning
Adjusting parameters such as shared_buffers, work_mem, and maintenance_work_mem improves caching efficiency, enhances memory allocation for operations, and optimizes maintenance procedures. Set shared_buffers to around 25% of total system RAM, ensuring an optimal balance between database and operating system caching.
Reducing Hardware Needs
- Scaling resources appropriately
Routinely evaluate CPU and memory usage trends to determine if resource scaling is required. For instance, using connection pooling mechanisms like PgBouncer helps manage connection overhead, reducing the number of concurrent connections needed and decreasing hardware requirements for large workloads. - Partitioning strategies
Large tables can be partitioned into smaller, manageable pieces, enhancing performance and hardware costs. By splitting data logically, I/O operations become more efficient, which can decrease the need for extensive hardware resources.
Other Cost-Saving Measures
- Utilizing cloud solutions
Deploying Postgres on cloud platforms, such as Azure Database for Postgres or AWS RDS, allows organizations to avoid pricey on-premises infrastructure. Cloud solutions often come with built-in scalability, allowing firms to adjust compute and storage resources based on their needs. Reserved capacity pricing can further enhance savings for predictable workloads. - Archiving infrequently accessed data
Organizations can reduce operational expenses by moving older, less frequently accessed data to lower-cost storage solutions while retaining access. Regularly updating archival processes ensures that only relevant data remains within the active database, enhancing performance.
EDB Solutions: Supporting Your Database Migration
Discover solutions for Postgres migration, including support services, migration tools, and consulting
Leaving Oracle can be daunting, but EDB’s proven Postgres capabilities can help your organization streamline its departure while avoiding costly downtime and other issues. EDB’s migration tools and professional services facilitate efficient database administration, lowering operational burdens and costs associated with manual management. Moreover, EDB enhances the overall ROI by allowing organizations to achieve faster returns from new capabilities gained through Postgres.
With EDB’s approach to Oracle migration and modernization, we use the following functionality services to migrate databases in less than 20 days, reduce app rewrites up to 95%, and realize 80% in TCO savings vs. Oracle licensing:
- Built-in Oracle compatibility
EDB’s Postgres Advanced Server is compatible with various Oracle features and constructs. There is no need for significant modifications when moving your existing Oracle database, objects, and code to Postgres. - Migration tools and platforms
Organizations can transfer various database objects, tables, and data to Postgres with minimal errors and issues using the EDB Migration Toolkit. It’s a powerful command-line tool that offers granular control of the migration process. Meanwhile, the EDB Migration Portal is a free online service that assesses the compatibility of Oracle database schemas with EDB Postgres Advanced Server, providing instant feedback and suggestions for a smoother transition. - EDB Migration Co-Pilot
Organizations can streamline Oracle-to-Postgres transitions with EDB Migration Co-Pilot, which uses an AI-driven chat interface – trained on EDB documentation – to resolve migration challenges, including command line and schema issues.
EDB Migration Co-Pilot enables customers to complete more Oracle-to-Postgres migration-related tasks in a self-service model, with instant error resolution. - Data estate management
EDB Postgres AI enables you to track your database activities across multiple clouds through a single pane of glass. It provides the fastest onramp to modernize from legacy data infrastructure, with solid Oracle compatibility and admin-friendly toolsets. AI-powered migration copilots and services also make the move simpler and more efficient. - Industry-leading expert support
Through EDB’s professional services and resources, get access to an impressive roster of Postgres contributors and experts with decades of experience to help you in your migration.
Get Started with PostgreSQL
Enjoy greater cost savings and substantial ROI through database migration
Moving from Oracle to PostgreSQL pays off in many ways.
Migrating from Oracle to Postgres enables customers to leverage open source flexibility for AI, analytics, and transactional workloads. Your organization gets greater freedom in managing its database, including gaining access to a broad range of customization and extensibility options; your applications can experience improved performance and scalability; and most notably, it has no licensing fees, excessive additional charges, or vendor lock-in, leading to cost savings, greater ROI, and the ability to redirect your resources to strategic growth.
Organizations should evaluate their current database infrastructure to take advantage of these benefits. Careful planning, thorough testing, and employing robust tools are essential for a successful database migration process.
Organizations interested in receiving expert guidance and support in their migration journey should contact knowledgeable service providers such as EDB. EDB’s experts can help negotiate migration’s complexities, ensuring a smooth transition and alignment with business objectives. Taking proactive steps now will allow you to enjoy the benefits of PostgreSQL for years to come.
To start, try the EDB Oracle Migration Calculator. It estimates how much your company can save by migrating from Oracle to Postgres.
Oracle to PostgreSQL Database Migration – Content and Resources
Moving to PostgreSQL? EDB’s experts share useful migration advice
See a breakdown of the migration process in this comprehensive guide.
What makes Oracle migrations difficult, and what does EDB bring to the table?
Learn to use different migration tools like EDB Migration Portal, Ora2Pg, and ora_migrator.
Businesses may outgrow the capabilities of their Oracle database and require a more extensible, feature-rich solution that supports a greater range of data types or languages. Some might also leave to avoid vendor lock-in or expensive licensing costs.
The change in costs and ROI from switching to PostgreSQL can be substantial. The key differences are eliminating licensing fees, reduced maintenance and support costs, hardware savings, enhanced performance, and greater flexibility for future technology adaptations. In addition, deploying on an enterprise-grade platform, such as EDB Postgres AI, increases the security of the data layer and reduces risk of unplanned downtime.
Yes. Many businesses have switched to EDB Postgres to gain better control and agility over their databases and to cut costs.
EDB Postgres is known for its extensibility, leveraging various PostgreSQL extensions to replicate Oracle functionalities such as advanced security, queuing, and partitioning features. EDB also provides extensive support and resources to facilitate the migration process from Oracle. This includes tools, services, and expert guidance tailored to ensure a smooth and efficient transition.
- Lower costs and higher ROI
PostgreSQL has zero licensing fees due to its open source licensing, which allows individuals and enterprises to access, modify, and distribute the code freely. - Extensibility support
EDB Postgres is catalog-driven, like most relational databases, but its difference lies in, a wider range of information stored within Postgres catalogs. Users can easily access and modify this information, making EDB Postgres more extensible than other databases. - Higher concurrency
MVCC (multi-version concurrency control) is a concurrency control system in EDB Postgres that allows multiple concurrent read-and-write transactions while maintaining transaction isolation to ensure data that isn’t rewritten and remains consistent for all users. - Feature-rich flexibility
EDB Postgres has a broader range of features, such as catalog-driven operations, concurrency control, layered transactions, and dynamic loading. It’s also ACID compliant, which ensures high data integrity and fault tolerance. - Security
EDB Postgres offers a robust set of enhanced security features that can provide effective parity with Oracle’'s capabilities. It offers Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), role-based access control (RBAC), Transport Layer Security (TLS), audit trails and monitoring, data anonymization, and compliance and regulatory support.
PostgreSQL supports ANSI SQL standard SQL syntax and data types. Oracle does not support these and includes some non-ANSI SQL syntaxes. Unsupported objects should be identified and converted manually with Postgres-supported syntax or feature work-arounds.
Some best practices before migrating from Oracle into PostgreSQL
- Get organizational buy-in.
Ensure that the entire business understands why migration is necessary and agrees to migrate to PostgreSQL. Establish migration goals, timelines, and contingencies. - Determine what needs to be moved.
Compile an exhaustive list of data or applications that need moving, eliminate old data the business no longer needs, and identify compatibility issues that might occur. - Test and test again.
Perform stability and performance tests on data migrated to PostgreSQL to identify potential issues before full migration. - Establish new security and observability measures.
Migrating to PostgreSQL allows businesses to leverage their security and monitoring capabilities to minimize security and outage risks.
There are many differences between the databases, namely data types, syntax, procedural language, and potential compatibility issues for migrated applications.
It’s easier to convert schemas in Oracle to PostgreSQL with the right tools. Check this list of free online conversion tools. While they are freely available, they can be challenging to use without the right expertise. If you’re converting an extensive database filled with thousands of query lines, it’s advisable to use an enterprise-grade solution instead.
EDB created EDB Postgres Advanced Server (EPAS), an enhanced version of PostgreSQL that includes implementations of many Oracle-specific data types, object types, keywords, procedural language constructs, and other features. We continually evaluate migration challenges and introduce new compatibility features in each major version of EPAS. The solution is designed to mimic Oracle code, drivers, and queries while supporting Oracle features or workloads. These features could reduce code and application rewrites by up to 80%. EPAS also has robust application security to minimize migration risks and delays.
Our fully managed, multi-cloud Postgres solution allows you to focus on building and scaling your business while we undertake the burden of database deployment, administration, and operational tasks. We also ensure high availability and backups of your mission-critical data and provide 24/7 professional assistance.
We’ll first gain visibility over your database estate and map applications to related data schema for assessment. We’ll then define which databases are part of the scope, define ROI that meets the migration strategy, and determine a prioritized migration backlog. For full insight into our iterative approach, click here.
Our professional services team will conduct a free assessment of your schema and data to ensure that your database qualifies for a migration to PostgreSQL.
Experience Seamless Database Migration with EDB
Make the move and achieve better returns on investment
With its robust migration tools and dedicated team of experts, EDB can facilitate your move from pricey legacy databases to cost-efficient Postgres with minimal downtime.