Database & Migration Services

For most estates today, 19c. It is a long-term release with the longest published support runway (Oracle's current dates run to the end of 2029 for Premier Support and 2032 for Extended Support), and it is certified for EBS 12.2. Newer releases are a separate decision, driven by features you need and by whether your applications are certified on them. We check the application's certification matrix before recommending a target.

The biggest change is architecture: later releases support only the multitenant (container database) architecture, so a non-CDB database has to be converted. We plan the conversion into the upgrade, using Oracle's AutoUpgrade tool, a pre-upgrade compatibility check and a rehearsal on a copy of your data. Application and driver compatibility, initialisation parameters and optimiser behaviour are tested before the real window.

We capture a baseline before the change, replay a representative workload on the target (Database Replay, where you are licensed for Real Application Testing), and compare execution plans and wait profiles, not just elapsed time. SQL plan baselines protect the queries that matter from plan regressions. AWR and ASH reports need the Diagnostics Pack, so we confirm licensing before relying on them.

You choose the recovery time and recovery point objectives; we design to them. That usually means Data Guard for site-level protection (Active Data Guard where read offload justifies its licence), RAC for node-level availability where the workload warrants it, and RMAN backups with scheduled restore tests. We prove the design by failing over, and record the measured times.

Yes. Ongoing administration is available on its own, under the tiers on our support page: backups proven by restore, patching against Oracle's quarterly release updates, space and growth planning, privilege reviews, alert triage, and a monthly report of top waits, slow SQL and capacity.

The method follows size, downtime window, platform endianness and version gap: RMAN or Data Guard for like-for-like moves; Data Pump or transportable tablespaces across platforms or versions; GoldenGate or Oracle's Zero Downtime Migration when the window is measured in minutes. Each path is rehearsed and timed, and the window is planned from the timings.

The rehearsal tells us. We time every step on a copy of production and plan the window from that, not from an estimate.

Row counts and aggregate checksums for every table, a sampled row-level comparison for the large ones, reconciliation of business totals with your finance or operations owners, and checks on invalid objects, sequences and statistics. Sign-off happens before the old system is retired, not after.

We roll back using the plan written and tested during the rehearsal. The go/no-go criteria are agreed before the window opens, so nobody makes that call under pressure.

Least-privilege access with periodic privilege reviews, unified auditing, encryption at rest (TDE) with key management agreed up front, encrypted connections, and quarterly patching on a schedule you can show an auditor. Where you are licensed for them, Database Vault and Data Masking add separation of duties and protect test copies.

It depends on the service model: bring-your-own-licence and licence-included options are priced very differently, and VM, Exadata and Autonomous services run differently. We compare the cost of running each option, not just the licence, and we document what you deploy so you can confirm the position with Oracle. We do not interpret your contract.