EDB offers 'risk-free' migration to lure Oracle users to the PostgreSQL side

EnterpriseDB, a support and services company for database PostgreSQL, has launched what it calls a "risk-free" approach to migrating applications from Oracle's database to the open source relational system.

One analyst said it came at a time when many Oracle customers "may finally be ready to move" away from Big Red's near-omnipresent database systems.

Speaking to The Register, EDB chief technology officer Marc Linster said the deal was applicable to Oracle customers signing up for a two-year contract to run a 64-core instance of PostgreSQL. Organizations signing up for the deal do not start paying until the new system is up and running and has been tested, he said.

"If a customer is willing to work with us then we're going to put a deal in place and that is contingent on us being able to do this migration and us meeting the customer's performance and quality requirements. And only when they say, 'Yep, it's done,' then the deal becomes effective. It's us being at risk," Linster said.

Before agreeing to take on the database migration, EDB said it would survey the user about their database and application. It would then run a small application against your Oracle database to extract the DDLs to understand the schema definitions and stored procedures.

The offer is available to instances of Oracle Database 11g, 12c, 18c, and 19c that are less than 500GB in size. While 21c is included, 23c is not supported yet, the company confirmed. It also applies to applications developed in-house. Linster said there was a different path for migrating third-party applications in conjunction with the application vendor. Oracle applications would not qualify for the deal.

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Users can migrate to EDB Postgres in a self-managed private cloud or a fully managed public cloud database-as-a-service, dubbed EDB BigAnimal. Carl Olofson, research vice president at IDC, said there was a group of Oracle database users, medium-sized in terms of revenue, that had been looking to migrate to PostgreSQL for a while.

"They've been very cautious but may finally be ready to move," Olofson said. "This is all about cloud migration, and they must be comfortable with BigAnimal, EDB's cloud platform. Oracle has countered with aggressive advances in their Oracle Cloud Infrastructure offerings, but are hampered by the fact that their best technology must run on OCI and can't be blended very easily with other cloud platforms, though they have a high-speed interconnect with Microsoft Azure and Azure native tools.

"BigAnimal can run on any public cloud platform, and that is EDB's advantage right now. Still, any database migration can be costly and risky, and must be approached with caution."

Craig Guarente, founder and CEO of Oracle licensing advisory firm Palisade Compliance, said moving away from Oracle was the starting point for a user saving on costs.

But he warned: "From a licensing perspective, however, just because you use less Oracle doesn't mean you will spend less on Oracle. It will be really important for anyone participating in this program to carefully navigate their Oracle usage, contracts, and compliance." ®