Recommended Migration Methods

Following are the recommended migration methods to migrate your database into an Autonomous AI Database.

Online Migration

If your source database needs to be always online and you can only take minimal downtime for the migration, you can use one of the online migration services and tools below, independent of your database size. Note that both options require the source database to be on version 11.2.0.4 or later. If your source database is using an older version, you need to upgrade it first if you want to use one of the online migration methods.

Following are the online migration methods:

• OCI Database Migration: OCI Database Migration, a managed cloud service, provides validated, cross-version, fault-tolerant, and incremental Oracle AI Database migrations for online and offline use cases. You can choose this option if you want a fully managed cloud service that handles the migration for you.

  See OCI Database Migration for more information.

• Zero Downtime Migration (ZDM): Zero Downtime Migration (ZDM) is a tool with a command line interface that you install and run on a host you provision. Zero Downtime Migration provides online and offline migration options. You can use this option if you want more control over the migration.

  See Zero Downtime Migration for more information.

  Note: These methods also run the Cloud Premigration Advisor Tool (CPAT) to check your source database for compatibility with the Autonomous AI Database and use Oracle Data Pump and Oracle GoldenGate to carry out the migration for you.

Offline Migration

If you can take your source database offline for the migration, you can use one of the following migration options in addition to OCI Database Migration and Zero Downtime Migration (ZDM).

Note: This is a manual method; you must orchestrate the export/import manually.

Following is the offline migration method:

• Oracle Data Pump: Oracle Data Pump technology enables very high-speed movement of data and metadata from one database to another. You can export your source database or individual schemas as dump files and import them into the Autonomous AI Database. You can store the dump files on the Object Store or a network filesystem (NFS) that you can attach to your source database and to your Autonomous AI Database.

  See Overview of Oracle Data Pump for the product documentation for Oracle Data Pump.

  See Import Data Using Oracle Data Pump on Autonomous AI Database for more information about how to export and import your source schemas into the Autonomous AI Database.

Other Migration Methods

In addition to the recommended migration tools and services, you can use the following offline data migration methods:

Note: These methods require more manual steps, coding, and advanced knowledge of each method. You must also migrate your source schema metadata using your own DDL scripts or tools such as Oracle Data Pump before initiating the data load using these methods. These options may be preferable for small data sets for which you want to avoid installing additional tools or using cloud migration services.

Following are the other offline migration methods:

• Database Links: You can create database links from your Autonomous AI Database to your source database and insert data into your tables by running queries over the database link. You can use multiple sessions to load multiple tables concurrently to improve the performance of the data load.

  See Create Database Links from Autonomous AI Database to Another Autonomous AI Database for more information about creating database links from your Autonomous AI Database to your source databases.

• Unload and Load Using Files: You can unload data from your source database into files and load those files into your target tables in your Autonomous AI Database. Autonomous AI Database supports loading data from different file formats including CSV, JSON, Parquet, and more. You can place the files on the Object Store or a network filesystem (NFS) attached to your Autonomous AI Database.

  See Load Data from Files in the Cloud for more information about how to load data from files in the object store.

  See Attach Network File System to Autonomous AI Database for attaching NFS directories to your Autonomous AI Database.

  See Load Data or Query Data from Files in a Directory for more information about loading data from files on a filesystem.

• Materialized Views: Using database links from your Autonomous AI Database to your source database, you can also create materialized views in your target database. As changes happen on your source tables, you can refresh the materialized views to keep them updated during the migration.

  See Managing Read-Only Materialized Views for more information about using materialized views to replicate data.

Note: Deciding the migration tool or service depends on multiple factors such as your source database, source data format, data volume, and complexity. To help you identify the most optimal solution for migrating your data to the Autonomous AI Database, Oracle provides an advisory utility called Oracle Cloud Migration Advisor. See Migrate Oracle AI Databases to OCI for more information about this utility.