In the current highly competitive data-driven business environment, certain requirements have surfaced that need to be addressed. These are increased security checks, lower operating costs, and often having to manually update to the latest versions of their database management systems.
However, these checks are not always present in traditional on-premises database systems and alternate technologies have to be implemented to make the business functions smoother and seamless.
One option is to migrate databases to the cloud and get all the benefits of this platform. These include heightened data security, durability, and scalability.
This post will go into one such scenario where businesses are increasingly moving their databases from Oracle to Snowflake, a data warehousing solution based in the cloud. We will examine briefly the features of Oracle and Snowflake individually and then go into various aspects such as the benefits of the migration and details of the procedure.
Oracle Database Management System (DBMS)
Oracle is a Relational Database Management System (RDMS) that was launched commercially in 1977. Among its multiple capabilities is the ability to move a database into a database, store it, and then retrieve it whenever required to be used in applications. RDMS determines what data should be used in applications and how it should be utilized.
An example will explain this point better. After a user queries a table, for instance, Oracle automatically finds the rows requested, checks the related data in the memory, and after performing several steps offers users the results requested.
Oracle can boast of being the first database management system to support LINUX/GNU. It runs on multiple types of hardware and software configurations and ensures quick data retrieval across various platforms. On the security front, Oracle is ACID-compliant which ensures heightened data integrity and durability.
Let us check the features of Snowflake now before going into the benefits of Oracle to Snowflake database migration.
Snowflake Data Warehousing Platform
Snowflake is a cloud-based data warehousing platform with all the benefits that a cloud environment brings to the table. It has a flexible storage repository and is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). These two critical functions make moving databases from Oracle to Snowflake a very attractive option for modern-day businesses.
Let us now check the cutting-edge and advanced capabilities of Snowflake.
- Unlimited storage: Snowflake offers unlimited storage space and unlike Oracle, does not charge flat fees for storage volumes regardless of whether it is used or not. Instead, users can download the precise storage space required and pay only for the quantum used. Hence, organizations can cater to a sudden rise in demand for storage without having to invest heavily in additional hardware. Thus, there is substantial cost-savings over Oracle.
- High computing power: Snowflake offers high computing power and even when many users together execute intricate queries simultaneously, there is no drag or drop in speed or database performance.
- Accepts data in the native state: Input of data in its native form is supported by Snowflake. Structured, semi-structured, or unstructured data can be inputted in Snowflake without the need for processing or formatting it. This feature is not present in Oracle databases.
Being a SaaS, most operations in Snowflake are fully automated, making it the ideal choice to migrate databases from on-premises Oracle to Snowflake.
Benefits of Migrating Databases From Oracle to Snowflake
Here are some of the important benefits of moving databases from Oracle to Snowflake.
- Since Snowflake is a cloud-based platform it follows a data lake approach. Users can work from any location and at any time as they are not tied down to the operations of in-house servers such as Oracle.
- The Database Replication feature of Snowflake allows databases to be synced or replicated to various databases and applications that exist in different locations and cloud providers. This ensures better business continuity which will now be explained with an example.
Suppose there is an outage or crash of the primary server in an organization. Immediately after, the secondary servers in separate locations that have been synced with the primary server in Snowflake are automatically triggered and work goes on as usual.
Once things return to normal and the function of the primary server is restored, the secondary servers update the primary server with all transactions and data that occurred in the break period.
- Snowflake ensures high security and safe data portability, a feature of all cloud-based platforms.
It is because of these benefits that it makes sense to migrate databases from Oracle to Snowflake.
Migrating Databases From Oracle To Snowflake
There are four steps in migrating databases from Oracle to Snowflake.
- Extract data from the Oracle database using the SQL Plus Query tool and put the mined data in a CSV file. If the Spool command is used it will continue running until switched off.
- Process and format the extracted data to ensure that it supports a structure that matches that accepted by Snowflake. The data structures currently matching with Snowflake are EUC-KR, UTF-8, ISO-8859-1 to 9, Big5, and UTF-16.
- The processed data cannot be loaded directly into Snowflake but has to be kept in a temporary internal or external staging area. An internal staging area is created by users while Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) and Microsoft Azure are external staging areas supported by Snowflake.
- The final step in Oracle to Snowflake database migration is to load data from the temporary staging area to Snowflake. For small databases, the Data Loading Overview tool is used while the COPY INTO command is used for transferring large databases to Snowflake.
The complete process of Oracle to Snowflake database migration is fully automated and does not require human intervention at any stage.