Thinking about going from Oracle to Snowflake? Now is the time to get excited. Mobilize.Net, makers of the heavily-used SnowConvert for Teradata, is taking its talents to Oracle. This shouldn't be too surprising to those who know us well as we processed over 100 million lines of Oracle code through our automated tooling in 2021. Given that number, we tend to get the same question all the time, when will we make our automation tool publicly available? Well... today. Today is that day. Welcome to SnowConvert 2: The Redux.

SnowConvert for Oracle takes in your Oracle SQL and PL/SQL and converts it to functionally equivalent Snowflake SQL and procedural code embedded in JavaScript. (Interested in Snowflake Scripting? Just as Snowflake is working on its scripting, we're working with them on the translation. Stay tuned.)

SnowConvert for Oracle accelerates any migration from Oracle to Snowflake by providing high levels of automation not just across tables and views, but stored procedures, functions, and packages. Here's a list of Oracle object types SnowConvert will be able to convert to functionally equivalent Snowflake SQL:  

• Tables - The cornerstone of any data platform, tables are converted at well over 99%.
• Views - The next step past tables. View conversion can get slightly more complex than tables, but SnowConvert routinely sees conversion rates similar to tables.
• Procedures - That's right. SnowConvert for Oracle automates PL/SQL to JavaScript embedded in Snowflake SQL. Procedures are also converted at a very high level (95%+).  
• Functions - While there are some functional gaps between what you can do with a function in Oracle versus the same in Snowflake, SnowConvert accounts for that. We've seen enough code to understand the patterns that will cause problems. 
• Packages - They said it wasn't possible, and yet... here we are. With the ability to customize how the objects contained in a package are organized, SnowConvert can take any package regardless of complexity and convert it to a functionally equivalent set of procedures and/or functions in Snowflake SQL.
• Synonyms - Using the power of the Abstract Syntax Tree (AST), any object referencing a synonym is referred directly back to the original object.
• Sequences - Basic, but effective. All of your sequences are automatically reproduced in Snowflake.

Of course, it's not just the DDL for each of these objects, all DML and any queries are also converted at well over 99% percent.

Assessment and Conversion

SnowConvert is all about accelerating your migration, and we understand that starts with assessment. Before you decide to migrate, SnowConvert for Oracle can provide you assessment data on the kind of objects you have, the expected conversion percentage, and some next steps on how you can finish the migration using the reports that SnowConvert provides. The tool can generate the following reports:

• Assessment Report - This report gives you a summary of the code that you have, and gives you an estimated level of conversion, not just of the entire workload, but of each object type listed above (tables, views, procedures, etc.)
• Issues Inventory - This is your roadmap to complete a migration. SnowConvert automates on average over 95% of the code present in a typical Oracle migration, but what do you do with the last 5%? That's just as important as the other 95%. Your issues inventory will give you a list of the warnings, issues, and errors that are present in the migration. 
• Object Inventory - You'll get a complete inventory of every object that was found. Each object's name, schema, lines of code, and other metrics associated with each object.

Interested in what these reports look like? There's an intro video on this page that highlights the output reports in SnowConvert for Oracle. This video will walk you through the ins and outs of how to use and interpret the assessment capabilities of the tool. You can also find more information on how to interpret the output of the tool on our main Oracle conversion page. 

How do I get started?

Easy. Fill out the form on our Get Started page linked below. We'll give you a walkthrough of how to use the tool, and let you experiment with the assessment version. (Note that SnowConvert is a local install that you can use on any Windows or Mac machine, but if you're more interested in a web-based version, let us know. Such a thing may already be in the works.) If you need more information on getting started, visit our documentation page. You'll find a complete guide on getting started with SnowConvert, and more information on how to evaluate the output from the tool. You can also learn more about the types of conversion done by SnowConvert for Oracle. 

Whether you're just considering a possible change or are so deep in PL/SQL that you can't see the light of day anymore, get started on the road to a migration from Oracle to Snowflake today with Mobilize.Net SnowConvert for Oracle.