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LewisLawrence13-Aquamarine
13-Aquamarine
August 1, 2023
Solved

SQL to Oracle migration

  • August 1, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 4683 views

Folks,

 

Curious if anyone has ever completed a Microsoft SQL to Oracle database migration for their Windchill implementation. I know there are lots of companies who have done the reverse migration but I cannot find anyone who has gone from SQL to Oracle. I have heard rumours of PTC customers who have transitioned from SQL to Oracle, but I am struggling to find anyone who has actually done it.

 

Anyone have any information to share?

Best answer by LewisLawrence

Just to completely close this one out, I have some final data to share. We partnered with an organisation called Pythian. Using their expertise and toolset we were successful in migrating our production SQL database to Oracle. After a few rehearsals, some data corrections and tool revisions, this was completed between Friday evening and early Sunday morning. We have been in production for over a week now and there has been no disruption to the user community, all existing queue entries, workflows, workspaces and data was intact and the transition was fairly seamless.

 

Our database was large (>3TB) and we were hitting some performance limits on SQL, the Oracle platform is more scalable and offers additional opportunities for tuning. Performance has been improved by the change and the initiative was a success.

2 replies

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24-Ruby III
VladimirN24-Ruby III
24-Ruby III
August 1, 2023

The following materials may be of some help:

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LewisLawrence13-AquamarineAuthor
13-Aquamarine
August 1, 2023

Thanks for the reply, I am aware of the options/toolsets for migrating from SQL to Oracle, also aware there are some generic options to migrate a SQL database to Oracle. But as I understand things there are some complications with the Windchill database, because some tables use blob storage and likely other details I am not aware of.  I suspect any solution would likely have to at least involve the bulk migrator or a similar Windchill aware toolset to perform a data extract.

 

In general a migration seems like it is theoretically possible, hoping to find someone who knows for sure and is ideally willing to partner on a project to do it.

avillanueva
23-Emerald I
avillanueva23-Emerald I
23-Emerald I
August 1, 2023

I had inquired about this last year. There was a cost saving effort to shift DBs to SQLServer away from Oracle. I had heard that migration from SQLServer to Oracle was not supported by PTC. It was a forever one way transfer. This would make me nervous since I was reading a bunch of CS articles on SQLServer issues and if we had to reverse course, there would be no way back. I am sure that it can technically be done but I would hate for an upgrade to fail later and PTC state your are on your own.

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LewisLawrence13-AquamarineAuthor
13-Aquamarine
August 8, 2023

Thought I should respond to myself and close this one out.

 

At the time I made my original post I also reached out to some of the PTC team directly, they were kind enough to share some information and provide some direction. As already mentioned in this thread, PTC do have an in house toolset for migrating SQL server Windchill systems to Oracle to move customers to their Windchill+ platform, this is for internal use only with no plans to commercialise.

 

I have not heard of any customers who have made the SQL to Oracle transition, though it appears some did test the opposite and "revert" back to Oracle for performance reasons. In all probability I expect this transition was only ever made using a non-production system.

 

There are organisations and toolsets in the marketplace offering a migration service, based on some recommendations I am currently exploring options with this approach.

 

 

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    LewisLawrence13-AquamarineAuthorAnswer
    13-Aquamarine
    September 30, 2025

    Just to completely close this one out, I have some final data to share. We partnered with an organisation called Pythian. Using their expertise and toolset we were successful in migrating our production SQL database to Oracle. After a few rehearsals, some data corrections and tool revisions, this was completed between Friday evening and early Sunday morning. We have been in production for over a week now and there has been no disruption to the user community, all existing queue entries, workflows, workspaces and data was intact and the transition was fairly seamless.

     

    Our database was large (>3TB) and we were hitting some performance limits on SQL, the Oracle platform is more scalable and offers additional opportunities for tuning. Performance has been improved by the change and the initiative was a success.

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