Oracle databases are central to enterprise operations and quite commonly paired with mission-critical applications. Oracle relational databases are also widely known for their
functionality, reliability, and scalability, but cost is often a concern.
Since its inception in the 90s, PostgreSQL, more commonly known as Postgres, has rapidly matured to become
a robust and highly functional open source database with a large and
growing community, and a similar feature set to Oracle. Because of its ACID-compliance and
degree of conformance with the SQL standard, IT leaders and executives
are increasingly considering migrating existing Oracle installations to
PostgreSQL environments.
At first
glance, migrating to a free-to-use open source database might appear to
be an obvious cost saving move. In fact, the recent Stratoscale 2019 Oracle to PostgreSQL Migration Report
reveals that cost reduction is one of the key drivers for enterprises
to migrate from Oracle to Postgres. There is, however, more to the total
cost of operating an enterprise-scale relational database platform than
software licensing. And because of that, they note, before embarking on your Oracle to PostgreSQL
migration, first consider the full array of costs and consider
alternative ways, such as on-premises managed services, to reduce those
expenses.
To help IT leaders alleviate their concerns and questions around migrating from Oracle to PostgreSQL, Stratoscale conducted a survey of 206 IT, DevOps, Software Architects, App Dev Managers and Database managers from around the world. The report compares the challenges and best practices of companies before and after migrating from Oracle to PostgreSQL databases. To explore the potential gap between the theory and practice of
migrating from Oracle to PostgreSQL, they divided selected respondents
into two groups. The report analyzes responses from those who are in different phases of
planning to migrate from Oracle to PostgreSQL (101 respondents), as well
as the responses of those who are already in the process of or have
completed their migration (105 respondents).
Stratoscale then presents
key findings by comparing between these two groups, which they refer to,
respectively, as "Before" and "After" in the report.
A few of the key findings from this year’s survey include:
- Companies are in a rush to migrate at least 10% of their Oracle database footprint. 86% of respondents in the "Before" group are planning to migrate more than 25% of their Oracle footprint in the next 12 months. 36% are planning to migrate over 50% of their Oracle footprint.
- Top triggers driving the migration from Oracle to PostgreSQL are Digital Transformation (52%), Cost Reduction (51%) and Moving to the Public Cloud (48%).
- Cost Reduction was selected as the #1 benefit both before and after the migration. However, it was selected as one of the top 3 benefits by 64% of the "Before" group, but only by 48% of the "After" group indicating that after a migration, respondents placed greater value on other benefits gained by migrating from Oracle to PostgreSQL.
- While only 57% of the "Before" group are expecting to see an improvement of 20% or more in TCO, 68% of the "After" group reported an improvement of 20% or more in their TCO.
- 68% of companies completed their migration within the estimated time or before. For 32%, the migration took longer than planned.
- 65% of companies either correctly estimated the downtime they would experience during the migration or experienced less downtime than expected. 35% experienced more downtime than planned.
- The majority (63%) of post-migration respondents opted to manage and consume PostgreSQL as a managed service (which is 34% more than those who planned to use a managed service before migrating).