Database Modernization Services: Oracle & SQL Server to Aurora

One ship date in the SOW, set during scoping
A fixed fee, with Mactores covering overage for delays inside our control
Parallel-run validation against your real workloads before anyone flips the switch
Customer-signed acceptance at each of five phase exits
Legacy decommissioning written into the contract

Your Oracle renewal notice has a date on it. So does the end of support for your SQL Server version. Your modernization program should have one too.

Mactores is the agent-native AWS modernization firm. Our database modernization services move Oracle and SQL Server workloads to Amazon Aurora on a ship date written into the statement of work, for a fee that is fixed once scope is confirmed. Agents run the repetitive analysis: discovery, schema mapping, code conversion drafts, and test generation. FDEs, the Mactores specialists embedded with your DBAs and application owners, make the conversion calls, run the cutover, and sign off in production. And the legacy database is decommissioned as a contracted deliverable, so the license line leaves your budget instead of lingering on it for another fiscal year.

Talk to us

Your renewal date and your end-of-support date already exist. Let's put a ship date beside them.

Start with a scoping call. It costs you an hour.

Book a scoping call

AWS Partner Network: Premier Tier
AWS Specialization: Agentic AI
Competencies incl. Migration: 7 Competencies
Validations incl. AWS DMS & RDS: 17 Validations

60 to 70%

of the hours a conventional database migration bid would staff, carried by agents instead

12 weeks

median from kickoff to production, across all Mactores engagements

published case studies, each naming the customer and the result

AWS service validations, including AWS Database Migration Service and Amazon RDS delivery

Since 2008

building production systems on AWS

Top Mactores Clients

All 21 case studies →

Customers include Safaricom, Synaptics, Flipboard, Poshmark, Seagate, HP, Adani, DocuSign, KlearTrust, Tilia, Sterne Kessler and Total Expert.

Why Do Oracle and SQL Server to Aurora Migrations Stall Before Cutover?

Because the money runs out between assessment and cutover. The assessment says the schema converts cleanly; then the leftovers turn up, nobody owns them, and discovery eats the cutover budget. What fixes it is less technical than people expect: a dated plan, a named owner for every unconverted object, and a validation phase with an end date.

We’ve seen this enough times to spot it on the first call. Nobody has a complete list of the stored procedures, scheduled jobs, linked servers and downstream reports touching the database, so discovery drags. Then the residue turns up. Package state in PL/SQL. A CLR assembly or two. A cross-database query some finance analyst wrote years ago that month-end close now quietly depends on.

Budget gets spent on discovery, so cutover gets underfunded. The renewal date, meanwhile, stays exactly where it was.

Hiring makes it worse. 57.9% of respondents to the 2026 Stack Overflow Developer Survey had done extensive development work in PostgreSQL over the past year. For Oracle, it was 9.4%. Every year on a licensed engine, the people who can look after it get scarcer, and pricier.

Then there’s Microsoft’s calendar. Extended support for SQL Server 2016 ran out on July 14, 2026. Anyone still on it is now either paying for Extended Security Updates or running without patches.

You’re probably stalled if:

There’s an assessment report, but no ship date anywhere near it.
A tool reported a big automation percentage, and nobody owns the objects it skipped.
Old and new environments have been running in parallel for months, with no finish line in sight.
The license renewal is a quarter away and the decommission plan is a slide.
Your team keeps asking for “one more sprint” on data validation.

Put a date on it

An assessment without a ship date is where most Oracle and SQL Server exits stall.

Bring the report you have, and we’ll show you what’s missing between it and a cutover.

Put a date on it

What Do Mactores' Database Modernization Services Include?

Everything between your current Oracle or SQL Server estate and a legacy database that's actually switched off. Mactores' database modernization services run nine workstreams, from discovery and target design through conversion, data movement, and validation, ending with cutover, decommissioning, and tuning. Done means the old license can be cancelled. Rows landing on Aurora isn't done.

This page covers the database side of our application and database modernization practice. Each workstream has a named owner, because ambiguity about ownership is where most migration overruns start.

Workstream

What happens

Owner

Discovery and inventory

What happens: Automated scan of schemas, code objects, jobs, dependencies, connection strings, and query workloads

Owner: Agents, reviewed by FDEs

Target architecture

What happens: Engine choice, Aurora Serverless v2 or provisioned, I/O-Optimized or Standard storage, Multi-AZ and cross-Region design

Owner: FDEs

Schema and code conversion

What happens: AWS DMS Schema Conversion or AWS SCT as the baseline; agents draft conversions and unit tests for what remains; FDEs take the hard objects

Owner: Shared

Application refactoring

What happens: Drivers, ORM configuration (Hibernate, Entity Framework), embedded SQL, connection pooling

Owner: Shared

Data migration

What happens: Full load plus change data capture through AWS DMS, sized to your data volume and change rate

Owner: Agents and FDEs

Validation

What happens: Parallel-run harness with row counts, checksums, query result reconciliation, and performance baselines

Owner: Agents, accepted by you

Cutover

What happens: Cutover runbook rehearsed end to end, with rollback triggers signed beforehand

Owner: FDEs

Decommission

What happens: Legacy database retired, with evidence for license termination

Owner: Shared with your team

Post-cutover tuning

What happens: Query plans, index review, and instance right-sizing during the first weeks in production

Owner: FDEs

Which Aurora Target Fits Your Oracle or SQL Server Workload?

For most Oracle estates, it's Aurora PostgreSQL. PL/pgSQL is a far closer cousin of PL/SQL than anything on the MySQL side. SQL Server shops that can't touch their T-SQL yet usually land on Babelfish first. Aurora MySQL fits lighter, read-heavy schemas. If the renewal is too close, RDS for Oracle or SQL Server buys time, with an exit date attached.

Pick the engine and you've mostly picked the conversion effort and the run cost too. It also decides how much application code someone has to touch. We make that call from workload data gathered in discovery, not from vendor preference or habit. Analytical workloads are a separate call: an Oracle or SQL Server warehouse usually belongs on Amazon Redshift, which our data warehouse migration services cover.

Target

Best fit

Watch for

Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible Edition

Best fit: Oracle shops with a lot of PL/SQL, OLTP systems that also feed reporting, and anyone who wants pgvector retrieval on the same data

Watch for: Packages, Oracle's habit of treating an empty string as NULL, and case-sensitive identifiers

Amazon Aurora MySQL-Compatible Edition

Best fit: Lighter schemas, read-heavy web apps, and teams that already know MySQL

Watch for: Its procedural language is thin, so apps built on stored procedures fight it

Babelfish for Aurora PostgreSQL

Best fit: SQL Server apps that have to keep speaking T-SQL over TDS while the move happens

Watch for: Some T-SQL isn't supported. Run Babelfish Compass before you commit, and plan the later hop to native PostgreSQL

Amazon RDS for Oracle or RDS for SQL Server (interim)

Best fit: A renewal too close for full conversion, or a vendor app certified only on Oracle or SQL Server

Watch for: You still pay the license. Treat it as a stopover and put the exit date in writing

Our view? If most of the business logic sits in stored procedures, the conversion plan matters more than the engine. When the logic lives in the application tier, the engine choice drives most of the cost, and if that tier needs restructuring too, our application modernization services handle it with the same ship-date commitment. Know which one you're dealing with before anyone quotes you a number.

How Does an Oracle to Aurora Migration Work With Mactores?

An Oracle to Aurora migration with Mactores moves through five phases, each closed by a signature: scope and commit; design and prove the hardest conversion; build in vertical slices; validate against the legacy database; cut over and retire it. Agents carry the repetitive analysis throughout, FDEs make the decisions, and your team signs every exit before the next phase opens.

Nothing moves forward on a status update alone. The model is described in full on our how we work page; here is how it applies to an Oracle or SQL Server to Aurora migration.

01

Phase 1

Scope and commit

What agents do

Discovery scans, dependency maps, object inventory

What FDEs do

Target architecture, risk assessment, ship date

Signed exit

You sign the object inventory, ship date, and fee
02

Phase 2

Design and prove the hard part

What agents do

Conversion drafts and tests for the riskiest objects

What FDEs do

Build and test the riskiest assumption first

Signed exit

You accept the target design and the converted hard objects
03

Phase 3

Build in vertical slices

What agents do

Code conversion, unit tests, documentation

What FDEs do

Refactoring decisions, slice reviews

Signed exit

You test each converted slice against your own applications
04

Phase 4

Validate against the legacy system

What agents do

Harness generation, reconciliation runs

What FDEs do

Explain every variance

Signed exit

You sign off row counts, checksums, and query results, with every variance explained
05

Phase 5

Cut over and retire legacy

What agents do

Runbooks, evidence pack assembly

What FDEs do

Cutover and rollback calls, production sign-off

Signed exit

You accept Aurora in production; the engagement closes once the legacy database is off and documented

One FDE carries your migration from the first schema scan to the production signature, so nothing gets lost in a handoff. Your DBAs and app owners only get pulled in for what they alone know: what the data means, which business rules matter, when cutover can happen. Nobody asks them to staff the build.

Phase 2 is there on purpose. We go after the riskiest conversion first, while a surprise is still cheap to fix and nobody has bet the date on it.

Start at scoping

Phase 1 ends with a signed object inventory, a ship date, and a fee.

Everything after that runs against those three signatures.

Start at scoping

What Breaks When You Convert PL/SQL and T-SQL to Aurora PostgreSQL?

Mostly the objects the conversion tool gives up on. Oracle to PostgreSQL migrations snag on packages and package state, autonomous transactions, CONNECT BY and scheduler jobs. SQL Server to PostgreSQL migrations snag on Agent jobs, CLR assemblies, linked servers and SSIS. NULLs, empty strings and collations are sneakier, because nothing errors out; the numbers just drift, and reconciliation catches it.

AWS DMS Schema Conversion, or the desktop AWS Schema Conversion Tool, gets through most tables, indexes, and simple procedures without fuss. The items it flags for manual work are where schedules slip. Here’s what we plan around on day one, and how we usually handle each.

Which Oracle features need manual conversion?

Source feature

Why it's hard

How we handle it

PL/SQL packages and package state

Why it's hard: PostgreSQL has no native packages

How we handle it: Map to schemas and functions; move session state to configuration parameters or tables

Autonomous transactions

Why it's hard: No direct equivalent

How we handle it: dblink-based pattern or a redesign of the logging logic

CONNECT BY hierarchies

Why it's hard: Different syntax and ordering

How we handle it: Recursive CTEs, reconciled against original result sets

ROWNUM, DECODE, NVL, empty string treated as NULL

Why it's hard: They look portable and aren’t quite

How we handle it: Rewritten, then tested hard on NULL and empty-string edge cases

DBMS_SCHEDULER, UTL_FILE, DBMS_ packages

Why it's hard: Nothing like them inside PostgreSQL

How we handle it: pg_cron for schedules, Lambda for logic, the aws_s3 extension for files

NUMBER and DATE types

Why it's hard: Get the mapping wrong and you lose precision or index performance

How we handle it: Mapped one column at a time, using profiles of the real data

Which SQL Server features need manual conversion?

Source feature

Why it's hard

How we handle it

SQL Server Agent jobs

Why it's hard: No agent in Aurora

How we handle it: pg_cron, or Amazon EventBridge with Lambda

CLR assemblies

Why it's hard: Aurora won’t run them

How we handle it: Rebuilt as Lambda functions or moved into the app

Linked servers and cross-database queries

Why it's hard: PostgreSQL has no direct equivalent

How we handle it: postgres_fdw, merged schemas, or a fix in the app layer

SSIS packages

Why it's hard: Run outside the engine

How we handle it: AWS Glue or AWS Step Functions

Collations and case sensitivity

Why it's hard: Defaults differ

How we handle it: citext or explicit collations, tested against real application queries

Temp tables, table variables, TRY...CATCH

Why it's hard: Behavior differs

How we handle it: Converted with regression tests, or kept on Babelfish where supported

AI-assisted conversion tools, including AWS’s own, handle syntax well. Accountability for the objects they can’t finish is what you are paying a partner for, so ask for that list by name. Where SSIS has grown into a pipeline estate of its own, our data pipeline modernization services move it as a parallel program.

How Do You Run a Near-Zero Downtime Database Migration to Aurora?

Load early, sync constantly, and don't flip anything until replication lag stays flat at peak load. That's most of it. Add two timed dress rehearsals on production-sized data and a rollback path everyone has signed, and for most transactional systems the outage your users actually notice comes down to a few minutes.

Nobody wants to explain an outage on a Monday morning call with the CFO. Our cutover approach for a zero downtime database migration, or as close to it as your workload allows, follows a fixed sequence:

01
Full load, then change data capture. AWS DMS copies the baseline and keeps Aurora in sync with ongoing changes until cutover.
02
Replication lag monitored as a gate. We don't schedule cutover until lag holds steady under peak load.
03
At least two dress rehearsals. Each one is timed and run against production-sized data.
04
Rollback agreed in writing. Criteria and reverse-replication paths are signed before cutover night.
05
Windows that respect your calendar. Quarter-close, open enrollment, Black Friday: whatever your busy season is, we schedule around it.

Which Compliance Requirements Shape an Oracle or SQL Server to Aurora Migration?

It depends on who you answer to. Healthcare means HIPAA. Card data brings PCI DSS. Public companies have SOX, service firms have SOC 2, and California residents' data falls under CCPA. Banks and broker-dealers add SEC and FINRA recordkeeping. EU data brings GDPR, plus DORA and NIS2. All of them reach into the migration itself, not just the destination.

Think about what a migration actually does: it pushes your most sensitive records through pipes that didn't exist last quarter. That's why compliance is designed in during phase 1. IBM's Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026 puts the average breach at USD 4.99 million worldwide, 12% more than the year before, so this is not the place to improvise. Auditors want evidence. We produce it as we go.

Framework

Applies to

What it changes in the migration

How we handle it

HIPAA

Applies to: US healthcare and life sciences

What it changes in the migration: PHI in transit and at rest during replication

How we handle it: TLS in transit, AWS KMS encryption at rest, HIPAA-eligible services only, access logging

PCI DSS v4.0.1

Applies to: Payments, globally

What it changes in the migration: Cardholder data scope during data movement

How we handle it: Scope minimization, segmentation, tokenized test data

SOX

Applies to: US public companies

What it changes in the migration: Change control over financial data

How we handle it: Signed phase exits and reconciliation evidence retained for audit

FFIEC, SEC 17a-4, FINRA

Applies to: US financial services

What it changes in the migration: Records retention and lineage

How we handle it: Amazon S3 Object Lock where WORM storage is required; lineage captured at migration time

SOC 2 Type II

Applies to: Service organizations

What it changes in the migration: Control continuity through the move

How we handle it: AWS CloudTrail and AWS Config baselines on day one

CCPA/CPRA

Applies to: California residents' data

What it changes in the migration: Personal data inventory

How we handle it: Data classification during automated discovery

GDPR

Applies to: EU and EEA personal data

What it changes in the migration: Residency and cross-border transfer

How we handle it: EU AWS Regions only; nothing leaves the region mid-migration

DORA and NIS2

Applies to: EU financial entities and essential services

What it changes in the migration: Third-party ICT risk, resilience tests, and an exit plan

How we handle it: We document the resilience tests and hand over an exit plan with the system

European workloads with sovereignty rules can be scoped onto the AWS European Sovereign Cloud, as long as the services you need are available there. Financial services teams will find audit trail and lineage, FFIEC and SEC alignment included, covered in more depth under financial services data modernization. One caveat on the table: each row is something we design the migration to meet. It isn't a certification, Mactores doesn't certify you against any of these frameworks, and no framework owner endorses us.

Talk through your audit scope

Which framework does your auditor open first?

We'll show where in the five phases its evidence gets produced.

Talk through your audit scope

Which Industries Does Mactores Modernize Oracle and SQL Server Databases For?

We work across five sectors: banks and insurers, healthcare and life sciences, SaaS, manufacturing, and TMEGS. Same contract for all of them. What shifts is the running order. An examiner, a PHI auditor, a weekly release train, a plant manager and a finals-night traffic spike each change which database goes first and what it has to prove before cutover.

Financial Services

Oracle exits that survive an examination.

Most core banking, card and trading databases we see carry PL/SQL that settles interest, fees and trades, a good chunk of it written by people who've since left. We convert those packages under generated tests. Month-end balances on Aurora have to match Oracle to the last decimal before anyone confirms a cutover date. Retention and lineage are built for FFIEC, SEC, and FINRA review from phase 1, and we keep every switch well away from quarter-close.

Financial services modernization

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Clinical and claims data that never leaves its guardrails.

If you're a payer, provider or life sciences company, PHI controls are on from the very first extract, whether the source is SQL Server or Oracle. Test environments only ever see masked data. Every replication path is encrypted, and the access logs are written for an auditor to read. We match member and patient IDs one by one between the old engine and Aurora, because one orphaned ID can hold up a claim for weeks after go-live. If FHIR is involved, Amazon HealthLake can sit next to Aurora.

Healthcare modernization

Internet & Software

Schema changes that ride your release train.

SaaS teams tend to call when the SQL Server or Oracle bill has started growing faster than revenue. We sequence the move around your deploy calendar. Driver and ORM changes ship behind feature flags, and Babelfish keeps T-SQL calls answering while the code moves to native PostgreSQL. Tenant data gets reconciled tenant by tenant, so a customer never spots a gap before you do. Bonus: with pgvector, the same Aurora PostgreSQL database can serve your product's agents too.

Internet & Software modernization

Manufacturing

A database move that never stops the line.

Plenty of MES, quality, and supply chain systems still run on SQL Server versions the plant software was certified against years ago. We map those dependencies in phase 1. Apps certified only on the original engine can go to RDS for SQL Server first, and cutover windows get booked against planned shutdowns. Reverse replication stays on until plant operations signs off, so falling back never costs the plant a single production record.

Manufacturing modernization

Telco, Media, Entertainment, Gaming, and Sports (TMEGS)

Subscriber databases that hold up on the biggest night of the year.

Billing, rights and player databases take a beating on launch days, finals nights and holidays, and that's what we size Aurora for, rather than some quiet weekday. Read replicas and Aurora Serverless v2 soak up the spikes. Cutover stays clear of the event calendar, and change data capture keeps the new database current right up to the old one's last hour. Subscriber counts and balances are reconciled before the first live event runs on Aurora.

TMEGS modernization

How Much Do Database Modernization Services Cost?

No rate card, because six things move the price of an Oracle or SQL Server to Aurora migration, and none of them show from outside: code volume and complexity, data size and change rate, dependent apps, downtime tolerance, compliance evidence, and the target engine. We measure all six in phase 1. The fee goes into the SOW as one number.

A number quoted before anyone has seen your inventory is a ballpark at best, so your fee waits for the end of phase 1. Once scope is confirmed, only a signed change order can move it. Delays inside our control are on us. Delays that start with you, like environment access or approver availability, are listed in the SOW before you sign, and those hours are invoiced at a rate you approve up front. The full terms are on our commitment page.

Pricing disclaimer

The scope bands and timelines below are planning context, not a quote. Your actual fee and ship date get set when phase 1 closes. Until they're in a signed SOW, treat every number on this page as a guide.

What drives the cost of an Oracle or SQL Server to Aurora migration?

Cost driver

Why it moves the number

Count and complexity of code objects

Why it moves the number: Packages, triggers, and procedures drive most of the conversion effort

Data volume and change rate

Why it moves the number: Affects full-load time, CDC sizing, and cutover window length

Number of dependent applications

Why it moves the number: Each one needs driver, ORM, and query changes plus regression testing

Downtime tolerance

Why it moves the number: Near-zero downtime adds rehearsal cycles and reverse-replication planning

Compliance evidence

Why it moves the number: Regulated workloads need evidence packs and auditor-ready documentation

Target engine

Why it moves the number: Babelfish can shorten the first move for SQL Server; native PostgreSQL costs more upfront and less to run

Illustrative scope bands (your committed date comes from scoping; median time to production across Mactores engagements is 12 weeks):

Scope

Typical profile

Indicative timeline

Focused

Typical profile: One database, modest procedural code, one or two dependent applications

Indicative timeline: 6 to 10 weeks

Core system

Typical profile: Lots of PL/SQL or T-SQL, several apps hanging off it, little room for downtime

Indicative timeline: 10 to 16 weeks

Portfolio

Typical profile: Multiple databases and shared schemas

Indicative timeline: Phased waves, each with its own fixed date

How do teams fund an Oracle or SQL Server exit?

Usually it's already in the budget, just under other names. Think of the Oracle or SQL Server renewal, the hardware refresh you no longer need, and all those DBA hours spent babysitting patches and storage. Once the legacy database is off, each of those lines can go somewhere else. AWS may chip in too, through its Migration Acceleration Program (MAP), and we check eligibility with your AWS account team while scoping.

Make the numbers yours

Renewal, hardware refresh, and DBA hours, added up.

We'll set that total beside a fixed fee and a ship date.

Make the numbers yours

What Should You Ask Before Hiring a Database Migration Consulting Partner?

Seven questions, and they're blunt on purpose. Does the go-live date appear in the contract? Who pays if it slips? Which objects will the tool skip, and who owns them? How is data validated? Is decommissioning included? Who signs off in production? How will your team learn the system? Fuzzy answers mean the delivery risk is still sitting with you.

Ask them on every vendor call. Ours too. You'll find out pretty quickly who's really carrying the risk.

Question

Weak answer

Strong answer

Is the go-live date in the contract?

Weak: "We target Q3."

Strong: A single date in the SOW, with overage terms

Who pays when the date slips?

Weak: Time and materials keep running

Strong: The partner covers delays in its control; your dependencies are named upfront

What will the conversion tool not convert, and who owns it?

Weak: A percentage

Strong: A named object list with an owner for each item

How is the data validated?

Weak: Row counts

Strong: Parallel-run reconciliation with every variance explained

Is decommissioning in scope?

Weak: "Your team can handle that later."

Strong: A contracted deliverable with a decommission record

Who signs off in production?

Weak: A different delivery team

Strong: The same FDE who scoped the work

How does knowledge reach my team?

Weak: Documentation at the end

Strong: Slice-by-slice reviews, runbooks, and signed handover

Most failed migrations we have been called in to rescue were technically feasible from the start. The failure came from deferred decisions and unclear ownership, which the questions above are designed to expose.

How Can Mactores Help You Out?

We turn an Oracle or SQL Server exit that keeps slipping into a contract with a date in it. It starts with a scoping call and discovery against your actual estate. Phase 1 ends with a ship date and a fee in the SOW. We're finished when Aurora is carrying production and the old database has been switched off.

Weighing an Oracle to Aurora migration, or a SQL Server to Aurora migration? Start with a scoping call. It costs you an hour. After that:

01
Discovery runs against your estate. Agents inventory schemas, code objects, jobs, and dependencies while an FDE designs the target architecture.
02
You get a date and a fee. Your scope, ship date, and fixed fee are written into the SOW for signature.
03
We ship. Five phases, a signature at the end of each, and a decommission record to close it out.

You're also covered by a 30-day satisfaction guarantee, plus a 90-day warranty: if something we delivered breaks in production in that window, we fix it free. On the AWS side, we're a Premier Tier Services partner with the Migration and Modernization Consulting Competency, service validations for AWS DMS and Amazon RDS delivery, and the AWS Agentic AI Specialization. The full list is on our AWS partnership page.

One more reason not to wait. Aurora PostgreSQL makes a solid base for the AI work your board keeps asking about, since pgvector can run retrieval on the same governed data your applications already trust. Retire the legacy database this year and the license line funds it. Leave it, and next year that same AI work arrives as a brand-new budget request, quite possibly after a competitor has shipped theirs.

Tier: AWS Premier Tier Services
AI specialization: Agentic AI
Competency: Migration and Modernization Consulting
Service validations: AWS DMS · Amazon RDS (of 17)
Building on AWS: Since 2008
Median time to production: 12 weeks

7 Consulting Competencies

What Do Buyers Ask About Database Modernization Services?

What is the difference between database migration and database modernization?

Migration moves rows from one engine to another. Modernization finishes the job: schema and code converted, applications refactored, data validated against the legacy system, cutover rehearsed, and the old Oracle or SQL Server database decommissioned so the license can be cancelled. Rows landing on Aurora isn't done.

How long does an Oracle to Aurora migration take?

The committed date comes from scoping. As planning context, a focused scope of one database with modest procedural code typically runs 6 to 10 weeks, and a core system with lots of PL/SQL and several dependent apps 10 to 16 weeks. Median time to production across Mactores engagements is 12 weeks.

How much does it cost to migrate SQL Server to Amazon Aurora?

There's no rate card. Six things move the price: code volume and complexity, data size and change rate, dependent apps, downtime tolerance, compliance evidence, and the target engine. We measure all six in phase 1, and the fee goes into the SOW as one number that only a signed change order can move.

Should we choose Aurora PostgreSQL or Aurora MySQL when leaving Oracle?

For most Oracle estates, Aurora PostgreSQL. PL/pgSQL is a far closer cousin of PL/SQL than anything on the MySQL side. Aurora MySQL fits lighter, read-heavy schemas, but its procedural language is thin, so apps built on stored procedures fight it.

Can we keep our T-SQL code when moving SQL Server to Aurora?

Often, at first. Babelfish for Aurora PostgreSQL lets SQL Server apps keep speaking T-SQL over TDS while the move happens. Some T-SQL isn't supported, so run Babelfish Compass before you commit, and plan the later hop to native PostgreSQL.

Can an Oracle or SQL Server migration to Aurora run with zero downtime?

Close to it. AWS DMS runs a full load and then change data capture, cutover waits until replication lag holds steady at peak load, and at least two timed dress rehearsals run on production-sized data with a signed rollback path. For most transactional systems, the outage users notice comes down to a few minutes.

Is Amazon Aurora suitable for HIPAA, PCI DSS, and GDPR workloads?

Yes, when the migration is designed for it. We use TLS in transit, AWS KMS encryption at rest, and HIPAA-eligible services only for PHI; scope minimization and tokenized test data for cardholder data; and EU AWS Regions only for GDPR workloads. These are design commitments, not certifications Mactores grants.

What happens to our Oracle licenses after the migration?

Decommissioning is a contracted deliverable. The legacy database is retired with evidence for license termination, so the license line leaves your budget instead of lingering for another fiscal year. The engagement closes only once the legacy database is off and documented.

Do AI conversion tools replace a database migration partner?

No. AI-assisted conversion tools, including AWS's own, handle syntax well. Accountability for the objects they can't finish is what you're paying a partner for, so ask for that list by name, with an owner for each item.

Does AWS fund Oracle and SQL Server migrations to Aurora?

AWS may chip in through its Migration Acceleration Program (MAP). We check eligibility with your AWS account team while scoping. Most of the funding is usually already in your budget: the license renewal, the hardware refresh you no longer need, and the DBA hours spent on patches and storage.

What should we prepare before a database modernization engagement?

Bring the inventory you have, the renewal or end-of-support date, and the stored procedure nobody on your team wants to touch. Discovery fills in the rest, and your DBAs and app owners are only pulled in for what they alone know: what the data means, which business rules matter, and when cutover can happen.

What happens if the migration misses the committed date?

Delays inside our control are on us. Delays that start with you, like environment access or approver availability, are listed in the SOW before you sign, and those hours are invoiced at a rate you approve up front.

Bring Us the Inventory and the Renewal Date

So bring us the inventory, the renewal date, and that one stored procedure nobody on your team wants to touch, and we'll come back with a date we're willing to sign. Book a scoping call or drop a line to lets-talk@mactores.com.

Book a scoping call Email lets-talk@mactores.com

Database Modernization Services: Oracle & SQL Server to Aurora

Top Mactores Clients

Why Do Oracle and SQL Server to Aurora Migrations Stall Before Cutover?

You’re probably stalled if:

What Do Mactores' Database Modernization Services Include?

Which Aurora Target Fits Your Oracle or SQL Server Workload?

How Does an Oracle to Aurora Migration Work With Mactores?

Scope and commit

Design and prove the hard part

Build in vertical slices

Validate against the legacy system

Cut over and retire legacy

What Breaks When You Convert PL/SQL and T-SQL to Aurora PostgreSQL?

Which Oracle features need manual conversion?

Which SQL Server features need manual conversion?

How Do You Run a Near-Zero Downtime Database Migration to Aurora?

Which Compliance Requirements Shape an Oracle or SQL Server to Aurora Migration?

Which Industries Does Mactores Modernize Oracle and SQL Server Databases For?

Financial Services

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Internet & Software

Manufacturing

Telco, Media, Entertainment, Gaming, and Sports (TMEGS)

How Much Do Database Modernization Services Cost?

What drives the cost of an Oracle or SQL Server to Aurora migration?

How do teams fund an Oracle or SQL Server exit?

What Should You Ask Before Hiring a Database Migration Consulting Partner?

What Results Have Mactores' Database Modernizations Delivered?

Fortune 500 life insurer: Oracle to Aurora without touching the valuation math.

Synaptics: off Oracle before the renewal, without borrowing the product team.

Branded payments leader: the cutover two earlier attempts never reached.

How Can Mactores Help You Out?

What Do Buyers Ask About Database Modernization Services?

Bring Us the Inventory and the Renewal Date