US Insurance Product: Oracle to PostgreSQL Migration
Migrated a mission-critical US insurance product platform from Oracle to PostgreSQL— preserving business logic, eliminating licensing costs, and delivering full regulatory compliance with zero data loss.
The Challenge
A US-based insurance product company was running their core policy administration and claims management system on Oracle Database 12c. Rising Oracle licensing costs, combined with the need to modernise their infrastructure, made a migration to PostgreSQL strategically essential.
The database contained years of complex PL/SQL business logic—including stored procedures for premium calculations, claims adjudication rules, and regulatory reporting—that needed to be faithfully translated into PL/pgSQL without any functional deviation. Any data loss or logic error would have direct regulatory and financial consequences.
Migration Challenges Identified
- 120+ PL/SQL stored procedures with Oracle-specific syntax requiring conversion to PL/pgSQL
- Oracle-specific data types (NUMBER, VARCHAR2, DATE semantics) with no direct PostgreSQL equivalents
- Oracle sequences, synonyms, and DB links used extensively across the schema
- Complex Oracle partitioned tables for historical policy and claims data
- Oracle-specific analytic window functions and CONNECT BY hierarchical queries
- 30+ Oracle scheduled jobs (DBMS_SCHEDULER) requiring re-implementation in pg_cron
- Custom Oracle audit triggers tracking all DML changes for regulatory compliance
- Zero-downtime requirement during active policy processing windows
What We Did
- Conducted a full schema audit to catalogue all Oracle-specific constructs before migration began
- Converted all 120+ PL/SQL packages and procedures to PL/pgSQL with functional equivalence testing
- Mapped Oracle data types to PostgreSQL equivalents with precision validation for financial values
- Replaced Oracle partitioning with PostgreSQL declarative partitioning (range/list) for policy tables
- Rewrote all CONNECT BY hierarchical queries using PostgreSQL recursive CTEs
- Implemented pg_cron for all scheduled batch jobs previously managed by DBMS_SCHEDULER
- Rebuilt audit triggers in PL/pgSQL with identical change-tracking coverage for compliance
- Used logical replication for near-zero-downtime cutover with parallel Oracle/PostgreSQL operation
- Executed 3 full rehearsal migrations against production data copies before live cutover
- Ran parallel output validation scripts comparing Oracle and PostgreSQL results across all reports
The Results
"We had serious concerns about converting 10 years of Oracle PL/SQL business logic. The migration team delivered a flawless cutover—every report, every calculation, every compliance check matched perfectly. We're now on PostgreSQL with no regrets."
— VP of Technology, US Insurance Product Company
Technologies & Tools
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