More details on Safe Switch Program: Easy to Switch from Sybase Systems

More details on Safe Switch Program: Easy to Switch from Sybase Systems

Taken from a Recent DB Newsletter, but worth a reprint. Btw, Lance is my boss and leads our global Migration Team.

The original from Database Insider is here

Migrating away from old legacy systems is a smart way to improve IT efficiency and cut costs--an imperative for many companies in today's economy. According to Lance Knowlton, Oracle's VP of platform migrations, migrating Sybase installations to Oracle has emerged as a sensible way to meet this need.

"Our customers are telling us that it's increasingly difficult to find people with deep Sybase knowledge," he says. "That skills shortage drives up salary and from there the cost per transaction. One customer recently told us that the number one cost item for them from a relational database perspective was Sybase."

For these companies, Oracle provides the Safe Switch program, which enables them to trade in their Sybase or other non-Oracle databases for Oracle Database 11g. In addition, Oracle also provides hands-on expertise, migration tools, and an online technology migration center to help companies migrate their legacy database applications.

Migration Workshops
As companies plan migrations, many have turned to Oracle for help finding the most effective migration path. "We have a series of practical workshops to talk about the migration strategies and best practices of moving from Sybase to Oracle," he says. Plus, migration tools such as Oracle SQL Developer help customers identify the different areas that will be affected by migration and simplify the entire process. "For many customers, that's all they need, and their DBAs are off and running," says Knowlton.

For customers that need more help, Knowlton points to Oracle's partner ecosystem. "Our specialized partners can help from end to end in the process of moving both data and applications over," he says. And finally, there is the shared service route, which allows companies to create a shared database platform on something like Oracle Exadata. "This allows the data costs to be spread out among different organizations while still moving away from those legacy platforms," Knowlton says.

Learn more about the Safe Switch program.