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In theory SQL is SQL, even more so if your App uses a layer of indirection like an ORM. If you don't use any Oracle specific features, procedures and similar, in theory you could just replace it. But that is not what happens. First problem is - majority of mature enterprise systems (which tend to use Oracle), are not designed in such a schoolbook way, so that's you first problem. Codebases are ugly and teams loose the knowledge to maintain some parts that are mature and work mostly ok - often the DB layer. Another concern is regressions in the product that is hard to properly test for. Minor details that are exposed by even small changes in DB behaviour or performance, that won't get caught in testing, but will cause an impact when your next scheduled job happens to fall on the first friday of that one month where the customer has that very special report that is just slightly so different and runs only once every 7 years. Another major pain point are operational concerns. When dealing with DB technologies, managing, deploying, operating your back end DB servers can be quite a different beast. In theory your teams should be able to handle it, as they are experienced engineers that know how to learn new tech quickly. In practice, you don't have money for those, and your team is lazy and doesn't really want to learn that new cool tech, just let them do their job. And finally, if it all "just works" at the moment, it is a hard sell to switch such a fundamental part of the system and properly validate the investment versus the risks. And this is all if you're not a super user of Oracle specific pieces, surrounding tooling or consultants/expertise. |
In practise, you want to cheap out on paying for training, have your team do their job and learn an entirely new system to expert level at the same time, the "cool new tech" isn't and your team knows that you're trying to sell it as "cool" to pull a fast one on them because you think they're idiot children, and you won't even commit to using it for long enough to make it worth the bother of trying to learn before changing your mind or prioritising something else, and you're humming and hawing about investing in the tools to make the new tech work well because it's free software so why should it cost you any money?
Besides, you won't prioritise maintenance or design, so the codebase is a mess and people are incentivised towards panic-of-the-day fixes and don't-ever-ever-break-anything conservatism - their fault not yours, obviously, it can't be your fault, you don't even work with the tech (you just choose it by fiat).