Migrating from Oracle to IBM Informix Dynamic Server on LUW

IBM just published an interesting new Redbook about migrating from Oracle to Informix Dynamic Server.

I think it is notably interesting for customers that want to break free from Oracle without making any compromises. Especially Oracle RAC customers will find an excellent alternative in IBM's sophisticated cluster technology IDS MACH11. But also non-RAC customers will benefit from the efficient IDS multithreading technology as well as the proven reliability and ease of administration of Informix. Remember that there are several customers out there that run thousands of IDS instances with only a handful of DBA's. IDS has proven it's very low TCO for many many years now and powers the critical business of major companies around the world.

• Migrating from Oracle to IBM Informix Dynamic Server on Linux, Unix, Windows (LUW)

Table of Contents:

• Chapter 1. Introduction
• Chapter 2. Architectural overview
• Chapter 3. Migration methodology
• Chapter 4. IBM Migration Tool Kit: An introduction
• Chapter 5. An MTK tutorial
• Chapter 6. SQL considerations
• Chapter 7. Data conversion
• Chapter 8. Application conversion
• Chapter 9. Administration of Informix Dynamic Server
• Appendix A. Data types
• Appendix B. Terminology mapping
• Appendix C. Function mapping
• Appendix D. Database server monitoring
• Appendix E. Database server utilities
• Appendix F. Additional material

Abstract:

In this IBM® Redbooks® publication, we discuss considerations, and describe 
a methodology, for migrating from Oracle® 10g to the Informix® Dynamic 
Server (IDS). We focus primarily on the basic topic areas of data, 
applications, and administration, providing information about the 
differences in features and functionality in areas such as data types, 
DML, DDL, and Stored Procedures.

Understanding the features and functionality of the two products will better
enable your decisions as you develop your migration plan. We provide a 
migration methodology and discuss the processes for installing and using the 
IBM Migration Toolkit (MTK) to migrate the database objects and data from 
Oracle to IDS. We also illustrate, with examples, how to convert stored 
procedures, functions, and triggers. Application programming and conversion 
considerations are also discussed. The laboratory examples are performed 
under Oracle 10g and IDS Version 11.5. However, the processes and examples 
can also be applied to Oracle 7, 8, and 9i.

With this information, you can gather and document your conversion 
requirements, develop your required migration methodology, and then 
plan and excute the migration activities in an orderly and cost 
effective manner.