Having proven the value of cloud computing, your business is ready to take the leap – you are looking at migrating your database to OCI (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure). There are several approaches you could take, so what are the key factors that will affect your strategy?
Business factors
As you plan your migration, you must consider each Oracle database on a case-by-case basis. At the top of your priorities should be the impact of downtime. A mission-critical system will need to be transferred in a different way to a secondary database. Similarly, you must address the issue of performance. Keeping super low latency databases on-premise may provide longer-term benefits.
From a purely financial standpoint, simplicity will also be a consideration. The more involved the migration, the more resources will be required and the greater the project cost. You will also need to calculate application impact – will applications and operations be affected during and after the OCI migration?
Technical factors
There are several technical factors that will affect your migration methodology options. The version and platform you currently use may not directly translate to the OCI version. This may require an in-place upgrade before migrating to OCI.
Database size has a direct effect on project timescales – indeed, some databases may be too large to transfer online. When this happens, you may be forced to consider an offline, manual migration. The same is true if your database uses any advanced features or customisations that fall outside the scope of Oracle’s automated migration tools.
Finally, does your team have advanced DBA skills? If not, most of the manual, advanced migration options will be unavailable.
Automated migration options
The eight factors detailed above will help to narrow down the available automated OCI database migration options:
1. OCI Database Migration
This methodology offers the simplest migration pathway. The Cloud Premigration Advisor Tool alerts you to any potential issues before migration starts, allowing you to correct errors in advance.
The system then uses a Data Pump to extract data from the on-premise database into object storage, before pushing it into the relevant OCI database repository. Finally, GoldenGate technology automatically collects and applies updated transaction data to ensure the hosted database is fully synchronised and ready to use at switch-over.
It’s worth noting that the OCI Database Migration method cannot be used for Cloud@Customer deployments.
2. Zero Downtime Migration
This is the option to choose when moving mission-critical systems that require 24/7 availability. Almost identical to the OCI Database Migration, the Zero Downtime method relies heavily on GoldenGate and Data Guard to ensure source and destination databases are synchronised and available at all times.
Once data has been extracted and migrated, you can test and verify all is working correctly before completing the switchover.
Zero Downtime Migration can be used for both OCI and Cloud@Customer deployments.
3. Enterprise Manager Migration Workbench
The most intensive and in-depth of the ‘automated’ OCI migration methods, this is the best option for complex, non-standard projects, or those with database version mismatch issues.
Using a combination of manual export/import routines and Data Pump extract-store-load operations, you have complete control over the migration and testing process. You can move your database to OCI or Cloud@Customer platforms – but you will also need suitable skilled DBAs to perform the migration.
Don’t wait to seek guidance
Even with automated tools, OCI migration can be complicated. Assessing your current Oracle database environment is essential – and it may be that seeking guidance at the beginning of your project solves many major strategic headaches along the way.
To learn more about migrating your database to OCI and what your business can achieve in the Oracle Cloud, please give us a call.