Oracle to PostgreSQL

comparison, methods, tools, and issues

Josh Berkus David Fetter PostgreSQL Experts Inc. for HP Tux Talks July 2009

PostgreSQL as an Oracle Migration Target

Oracle DBAs like PostgreSQL

"I was impressed thoroughly with the ease of implementation, as well as compatibility and installation of PostgreSQL, considering its open source nature," said Mark S., an Oracle Certified DBA. "Using it in enterprise applications [and] Web site situations was relatively painless [and] a simplified security structure made it very appealing." -TechTarget.com

Oracle-Postgres User Base

Oracle DBAs are common in the PostgreSQL community

migrating from Oracle or using it concurrently about 30% of active community Many Oracle DBAs regard other OSDBs as toys

PostgreSQL is the serious OSDB

Similar Communities

Full-time database professionals

Database administrators Data architects Appreciation for standards & practices Respect for Oracle features, development Migration experience for peer help

Oracle-PostgreSQL community experience

Database Priorities
PostgreSQL
2.Security 3.Reliability 4.Standards 5.DB Features 6.Performance 7.Ease-of-use 8.Programmer Features 1.Data integrity

Oracle

1.Data integrity 2.Reliability 3.Performance 4.Security 5.Standards 6.DB Features 7.Programmer Features 8.Ease-of-use

Basic Performance Comparison

SpecJAppserver 2007 benchmark

800

Operations/Second vs. $1000's

700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 Performance

Oracle10 PostgreSQL8.3

Cost

Basic Performance Comparison

Basic Performance Comparison

Multicore Scaling (Oracle 10 vs. Postgres 8.3)*

Throughput

12

16 Cores

32

* this chart is based on approximate data and not a benchmark, and is meant for illustrative purposes only.

Basic Performance Comparison

Average Data Warehouse Sizes (2008)*

MySQL

PostgreSQL

Oracle

DW Platforms

Terabytes 4

10

* based on several informal surveys of users. intended for illustrative purposes only.

Cost

source: news.cnet.com

Cost Comparison
PostgreSQL $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $24,000.00 $24,000.00 $120,000.00 Oracle $190,000.00 $70,000.00 $44,000.00 $67,000.00 $371,000.00 $639,000.00

16-Core Server License Spatial/GIS Server License Partitioning Annual Maintenance TCO (1 year) TCO (5 years)

Evaluating Migration Feasibility

Reasons to Migrate

Cost Administration Features

Reasons to Migrate

Cost

Oracle per-CPU licensing costs are high PostgreSQL maintenance prices are low Only pay for production support, not development/trial

Administration Features

Reasons to Migrate

Cost Administration

PostgreSQL requires less oversight, system resources Automated installation and deployment is easier Adding new servers requires only technical resources, not paperwork

Features

Reasons to Migrate

Cost Administration Features

Make use of special PostgreSQL features and/or add-ins Make use of open source tools which integrate well with PostgreSQL

Reasons Not to Migrate

Applications Training Features Performance Timeline

Reasons Not to Migrate

Applications

3rd party vendors may not support Postgres Oracle Applications will not migrate Internal applications may require porting work

Training Features Performance Timeline

Reasons Not to Migrate

Applications Training

DBAs & Developers need to learn PostgreSQL Sysadmin staff need to support PostgreSQL

Features Performance Timeline

Reasons Not to Migrate

Applications Training Features

May not be able to take advantage of Postgres features Oracle has some features PostgreSQL does not

Performance Timeline

Reasons Not to Migrate

Applications Training Features Performance

Applications designed for Oracle will perform better on Oracle Oracle scales to large hardware better

Timeline

Reasons Not to Migrate

Applications Training Features Performance Timeline

Application/Tools are already in production No time to learn new tools, test, plan migration

Good migrations take 4-12 months

Best Case Scenario

Green field, in-house applications

Not tied to Oracle syntax, architecture No third-party vendors to negotiate with Staff not wedded to Oracle Not in production yet

or major application version upgrade planned

Can use PostgreSQL features

Best Case Scenario

Not performance-constrained

100's of transactions per second, not 1000's Not already straining Oracle's performance limits

unless you can horizontally scale it on PostgreSQL

Migration Roadblocks

Extensive PL/SQL use

PL/pgSQL is compatible but not 100% Oracle +outer joins ROWNUM, CONNECT BY, others

Proprietary syntax

Migration Roadblocks

Need specific Oracle-only features

OLAP Oracle Toolkits (BI, Audit, Security, etc.) Others infrastructure tools management & monitoring tools

Oracle tools required for management

Migration Roadblocks

People & Companies

Vendor won't cooperate Staff are devoted to Oracle

& have no experience with other DBMSes

Certifications are required

Evaluating Migration

Migration works when:

Cost of licenses is high Cost of migration is low

training porting

Don't need Oracle-only features/tools

Hundreds of Oracle users have migrated to PostgreSQL

But obviously most of them have not

Alternative: Side-by-Side

Easy applications/new applications migrated

Old/difficult applications continue to run on Oracle

Data integration between Oracle and Postgres servers

this is actually easier than you'd think where migration cost is lowest and benefits are highest

Allows you to move only the best applications

Integration Tools

Integration Tools DBI-Link ETL GUI ERD ORM Reporting

DBI-Link

Oracle Heterogeneous Services

ETL

GUI

GUI

ERD

ORM
Hibernate Spring EJB 3.0 Spring Etc., etc., etc.

Reporting: BIRT

Reporting: JasperSoft

Reporting: Business Objects

Reporting: Microstrategy

Migration Tools

Migration Tool: Ora2pg

Perl module Connects to Oracle Extracts Schema Lets You Choose Columns, etc. Dump data
Stream File

Migration Tool: Orafce

Oracle Compatibility Layer DBMS_* Features Lots of other Oracle-standard function analogs

Migration Tool: Pgsnap

Orasnap-like tool PHP Command line interface

Migration Tool: EnterpriseDB

Proprietary Fully Oracle Compatibile PostgreSQL Technology

Missing Oracle Features

Oracle Things You May Miss

OLAP Tools (some)

Cubes Excel integration Analytic Workspace Manager

Oracle Things You May Miss

SQL*Loader

Oracle Things You May Miss

PL/SQL Packages Source Management Encapsulation Coding Habits

Oracle Things You May Miss

Statspack

Oracle Things You May Miss

Parallel Query Parallel Query Parallel Query Parallel Query

Oracle Things You May Miss

Hot Standby

Oracle Things You May Miss

Materialized View Management
Read-Only Updateable Primary Key Object ROWID Etc., etc.

PostgreSQL Feature Advantages

PostgreSQL Features

PostGIS and OSGeo tools psql client MVCC / Rollbacks Transactional DDL Stored Procedure Languages Used-Defined Data Types Specialty Index Types

PostGIS with OS Geo Tools

PostGIS is generally considered better than Oracle Spatial today

more features, better performance

Integrates well with fast-moving open source geo data tools

MapServer OpenLayers OpenStreetMap GRASS

psql Command-Line Client

Worlds better than SQL*Plus

Easy-to-use Productivity features

editor integration history database info navigation ad-hoc data import/export

MVCC & Rollbacks

PostgreSQL implements row-versioning

Instead of Oracle's Undo Log Enables transactional DDL Eliminates a major Oracle headache Simplifies I/O optimization

Rollbacks are free

Log is write-only

Transactional DDL

In Postgres, everything is in a transaction

including all create/drop/alter statements except create/drop database All-or-nothing Aids deployment of application changes Enables agile development of the database

DDL scripts can be rolled back

Stored Procedure Languages

Write SPs in whatever language you like:

R C++ Lua LOLCODE Ruby shell

SQL PL/pgSQL C Perl Java Python PHP

Lets developers use SPs, not just DBAs

User-Defined Data Types

DBAs can create first-class data types

with own storage operators index methods ISNs/ISBNs Networks Proteins Crypto

Tremendously useful for specialty data

Specialty Indexes

Partial Indexes

including Partial Unique index on a function or calculation without materializing inclusion in networks, shapes arrays user-defined data types

Expression Indexes

Indexes on special data

Some Oracle to PostgreSQL Migration Gotchas

SQL Gotchas

Oracle non-standard NULLs SEQUENCE syntax Oracle (+)Outer Join syntax Forget about optimizer hints Different timestamp arithmetic No ROWID Postgres triggers are not inlined

and no column-level triggers

Other Gotchas

Encodings all have different names Need to quote procedure bodies Cursor syntax is different No autonomous transactions in procedures Error messages are different

Conclusion

PostgreSQL is comparable to Oracle for some applications and deployments

but not for others you need to evaluate carefully

Several tools exist to help you migrate Other tools are available for integration Oracle has several features which PostgreSQL doesn't

and more tools

Conclusion

Oracle has several features which PostgreSQL doesn't

and more tools

PostgreSQL has some features Oracle doesn't And you need to look out for common migration issues.

More Information

PostgreSQL

Upcoming Events

www.postgresql.org
www.pgexperts.com josh@pgexperts.com davidf@pgexperts.com

PG West: Oct. 16 pgCon Paris: Nov. 5 pgCon Japan: Nov 19 User Groups monthly, worldwide

Josh Berkus & David Fetter

List of tools on next slide

This presentation copyright 2009 PostgreSQL Experts Inc., licensed for distribution under the Creative Commons Attribution License, except for the Oracle Trademark, which belongs to Oracle, Inc. and is used here under fair use.

List of Tools and Locations

DBI-Link Talend SQLPower

http://pgfoundry.org/project/dbilink http://www.talend.com/ http://www.sqlpower.com/ http://sqlmanager.net/ http://www.minq.se/products/dbvis/ http://hibernate.org/ http://www.eclipse.org/birt/

SQLManager DBVisualizer Hibernate BIRT