How to transfer data from a SQL Server Database to a Oracle Database

Question

The current application I'm working lets call X is an archiving application for the data kept another application say Y. Both are very old applications developed about 8 odd years back. So far in my reading of the documentation, I have learnt that the process to transfer data used is that, the SQL Server Database Tables snapshot is created in flat files and then this flat files are ftp'd to the correct unix box where through ctl various insert statements are generated for the Oracle Database and that's how this data is transferred. It uses bcp utility. I wanted to know if there is a better and a faster way this could be accomplished. There should be a way to transfer data directly, I feel the whole process of taking it in files and then transfer and insert must be really slow and painstaking. Any insights???

Answer 1

Create a DB Link from your Oracle Database to SQL Server database, and you can transfer the data via selects / inserts.

Schedule the process using DBMS_SCHEDULER if this needs to be done on a periodic basis.

Answer 2

you can read data from a lot of different database vendors using heterogeneous services. To use this you create a service on the Unix box that uses - in this case - odbc to connect to the SQL Server database.

You define this service in the listener.ora and you create a tns alias that points to this service. The alias looks pretty normal, except for the extra line (hs = ok). In your database you make a database link that using this tns alias as connect string.

UnixODBC in combination with the FreeTDS driver works fine. The exact details vary between releases, for 10g look for hs4odbc, 11g dg4odbc.