Moving Databases From Oracle to Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)

This post will go into the various aspects of moving databases from Oracle to S3. However, first, looking at the functioning of the two individually will help readers understand the process better.

Oracle database

The Oracle Database Management System (DBMS) is mainly used for OLTP (Online Transaction Processing). It was the first among other database systems to support Linux and GNU. Most software applications can be run on various hardware configurations with the Oracle database system. Most importantly users get high data integrity, reliability, and security as the database system is ACID-compliant.  

Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Services)

Now, let us study the intricacies of the Amazon Simple Storage Service to gain insight into why organizations want to move databases from Oracle to S3 in the present business ecosystem.

S3 is a cloud-based data warehousing solution optimized for OLAP) Online Analytical Processing). Users can easily launch an application on this platform by simply starting an S3 cluster through the AWS Console or API calls and then connecting to the S3 instance.   

Additionally, S3 offers high scalability, security, availability, and data performance. Other user-friendly features of S3 include the ability to backup, restore, and archive enterprise applications, big data analytics, and IoT devices. Most critically, S3 offers 99.999999999 data durability, among the highest in this niche.  

Running Oracle Database on Amazon Web Services

By moving the database from Oracle to S3 and running it on this cloud-based platform, its performance is increased manifold. So, what are the ways that users can get its benefits? 

·        Moving the on-premises Oracle database system to the cloud through S3. Several vital management tasks that had to be done with Oracle are now done away with.

·        Running the Elastic Block Store (EBS) and EC2 compute instances in Oracle on-premises systems. Later, the Oracle storage repository and server must be replaced with the AWS setup.  

Migrating on-premises Oracle to cloud-based S3

There are two methods to migrate databases from Oracle to S3.  

·        Import Data, Oracle Data Pump, and Amazon S3 bucket – Export Oracle source data with the Oracle DBMS_DATAPUMP package and dump the file in an Amazon S3 bucket. Download this file to the DATA_PUMP_DIR directory on the RDS Oracle DB instance. Finally, import and copy the data from the dump file to the Amazon RDS Oracle DB instance with the DBMS_DATAPUMP package.

·        Import Data, Oracle Data Pump, and a Database Link – Use the Oracle Data Pump and the Oracle DBMS_FILE_TRANSFER package to link to a source Oracle instance. It can either be an Amazon EC2 instance or an Amazon RDS for Oracle database instance. Use a DBMS_DATAPUMP package to export the Oracle data to a dump file. Copy this file to the Amazon RDS Oracle DB instance using a connected database link. Finally, import the data with the DBMS_DATAPUMP package. 

The best tools are fully automated to prevent data loss during Oracle to S3 database migration