Bulk Loading Oracle without SQL*Loader | An Overview

You have an ongoing requirement to move data from one database to another. In this case, your operational data is in DB2 database running on z/OS on the company mainframe. There is a business need to periodically copy the data to an Oracle database. (The DB2 system is “off-limits” when it comes to ad hoc reporting.)

There are many excellent ETL (Extract, Transform, and Load) tools on the market that might be considered – open source and closed source, both commercial and free. Whether free or $$$, they often take substantial investments in time and skills to get working.

There are a number of SQL desktop tools that might help extract data from one system, put it into some type of intermediate file, and push it into another. But these tools typically can’t take advantage of the high-performance capabilities of the ETL tools, or the brand-specific loading tools, like Oracle’s SQL*Loader utility. They just do traditional database inserts either via ODBC or JDBC.

Well, then why not simply use Oracle’s SQL*Loader? Much easier said than done. You’ll be faced with control files and command lines, and that’s just the “load” part. What about getting the data out of your DB2 system, properly prepared for loading into Oracle? Is there a DB2 “unload” utility?

What if you could move your data from DB2 to Oracle without buying an expensive application? What if you could avoid having to learn a complicated application? What if you could move your data by simply pointing-and-clicking, by simply configuring a Windows Control Panel? Extracting and inserting your data by using nothing more than an ODBC driver? Yet, still get support for Oracle’s bulk protocols for maximum performance? With Progress DataDirect Connect and Connect64 for ODBC, it can be that easy!

How would you do this? Install a couple of ODBC drivers, click a few buttons, and you’ll have copied data from DB2, and loaded your data into Oracle! Seriously!

What's next?

Over the next two days I will publish a two part series. Part 1 will explain the ease at which you can extract data from DB2, and part 2 explain loading this data into Oracle in a few simple steps, with nothing more than an ODBC driver!