Re: Will Postgres work with Oracle Forms 6i?

On Thu, 2014-02-20 at 14:03 -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> On 02/20/2014 12:53 PM, John R Pierce wrote:
> >
> > On 2/20/2014 12:45 PM, Santo Campione wrote:
> >> We are assessing how to migrate our current (and very old) Oracle
> >> Database 10.1.2.4 to Postgres. Our question/concern is the data to be
> >> migrated is used extensively by custom applications written with
> >> Oracle Forms 6i. Will Postgres work with Forms 6i? If not, what
> >> options would you recommend?
> >
> > extremely unlikely Oracle Forms will work with ANYthing other than
> > Oracle database.
> >
>
> A quick Google shows that Oracle Forms will work with other databases
> through ODBC.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> JD
>
>
> --
> Command Prompt, Inc. - http://www.commandprompt.com/ 509-416-6579
> PostgreSQL Support, Training, Professional Services and Development
> High Availability, Oracle Conversion, Postgres-XC, @cmdpromptinc
> For my dreams of your image that blossoms
> a rose in the deeps of my heart. - W.B. Yeats
>
>

Having worked with Oracle (and PostgreSql) I'd say your chances are
close to zero.
6i is thick client-server. 10g browser based but even so required
approx. 25Mb on the client.
If most of your Oracle code has been put into libraries as packages then
your re-write time could be reduced by say ten percent.
Fermilabs needs to do a cost benefit analysis of the cost of sticking
with Oracle and upgrading to 10g then 11g, compared with going thin
client and open source.
Don't know how many forms and reports you have. My gut feeling would be
to pay the Oracle licences, install their conversion tools, tidy up your
forms code and get cracking.
PostgreSql is an excellent database but with Oracle you are locked in.
A final thought -- if you have several applications using Oracle but are
not integrated in any particular way, take one and use it as a
conversion benchmark to measure the effort required to go open source.

HTH,
Robert