Migrating Sybase ASE database to SQL Server for a global leader in content services
Database technologies are constantly improving, and the size of operation data is rapidly growing. It’s a common problem for all data users, and playing catch-up game against modern technologies is extremely hard task. To win this game you need to upgrade your existing database system. Easy to say, but not so easy to get done. In this video blog post, we’ll discuss a Sybase ASE to SQL Server database migration project that DB Best recently performed for a leading global provider of content services for the legal industry.
Overview of the customer’s Sybase ASE system
The original customer’s system included the Sybase ASE database and several Java-applications interacting with it. Data from the operational database was loaded into the Sybase IQ database via the ETL process for reporting queries.
Reasons to migrate to SQL Server
Our customer faced difficulties with the upgrade of the original system to a newer version of SAP Sybase ASE. These included: the inability to buy additional RAM for the aging IBM server; unsupported server hardware with the aging AIX operating system; as well as the lack of qualified specialists to support the Sybase ASE database. Upgrading to Windows-based servers running on commodity servers was very appealing to our customer to meet current and future performance requirements.
The customer also considered expense of newer SAP Sybase ASE licenses compared to the “everything built-in” value of SQL Server enterprise licenses, check on this website - https://jatapp.com/. Add to this much wider possibilities of SQL Server platform, poor support for IBM AIX used on the existing servers, discontinued server hardware and lack of qualified Sybase ASE support professionals. The cost savings easily justified the cost for doing the migration project with DB Best.
Database migration process in details
At DB Best, our database migration plan follows a 12-step process. The percentage values shown below represent the relative cost and time spent on each of these steps for a typical migration project.
The following are three particular challenges that our development team faced with this migration project.
- Schema conversion. For the conversion of database objects (tables, views, functions, procedures, triggers, etc.) we’ve used the SQL Server Migration Assistant for Sybase (SSMA). It allows to automatically convert database objects, but some of them still need manual conversion.
- Data migration. The customer needed to save the data from the original database. We’ve used the Database Compare Suite to migrate data automatically from the old database to the new one.
- Application conversion. On this step we’ve reconnected the Java applications and the ETL script to the new SQL Server database. Some manual code modifications were also performed on this step. At this point we dropped down the original Sybase ASE database. Here’s how the customer’s system looked now.
These three steps are the most crucial for the database migration strategy.
Actually, a lot of organizations now use the outdated database systems. DB Best developers have practical experience of successful completion of database upgrade and migration projects. So, if you want to jumpstart your database migration projects and increase performance of your database systems, please, contact us.