Overview of Migration

An Oracle database provides you with better scalability, reliability, increased performance, and better security than third-party databases. For this reason, organizations migrate from their current database, such as Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase Adaptive Server, or Microsoft Access, to an Oracle database. Although database migration can be complicated, SQL Developer enables you to simplify the process of migrating a third-party database to an Oracle database.

SQL Developer captures information from the source database and displays it in the captured model, which is a representation of the structure of the source database. This representation is stored in a migration repository, which is a collection of schema objects that SQL Developer uses to store migration information.

The information in the repository is used to generate the converted model, which is a representation of the structure of the destination database as it will be implemented in the Oracle database. You can then use the information in the captured model and the converted model to compare database objects, identify conflicts with Oracle reserved words, and manage the migration progress. When you are ready to migrate, you generate the Oracle schema objects, and then migrate the data.

SQL Developer contains logic to extract data from the data dictionary of the source database, create the captured model, and convert the captured model to the converted model.

Using SQL Developer to migrate a third-party database to an Oracle database provides the following benefits:

• Reduces the effort and risks involved in a migration project

• Enables you to migrate an entire third-party database, including triggers and stored procedures

• Enables you to see and compare the captured model and converted model and to customize each if you wish, so that you can control how much automation there is in the migration process

• Provides feedback about the migration through reports