S.P. Richards simplifies database operations by migrating from MongoDB to Oracle
The company moves its order management system from MongoDB to Oracle Exadata without rewriting the application, ultimately lowering costs.
United States | Industrial Manufacturing
“We had a great deal of skepticism migrating our MongoDB workload to Oracle Exadata without code changes or degradation to performance. However, the Oracle API for MongoDB did everything promised—we were able to switch our application over without modification or disruption—and delivered significant cost savings.”
About S.P. Richards (SPR)
SPR is a people-first national logistics and solutions partner with unmatched distribution capabilities. As a trusted partner, it orchestrates the storage, movement, and seamless delivery of tens of thousands of products from suppliers to customers every day. Whether fulfilling orders across office supplies, janitorial/facility supplies, furniture, or technology, the company cares deeply about the products it sells and the services it delivers. With its personalized approach, the company executes with precision and velocity at significant volumes to help customers and suppliers drive business growth.
Business problem: Reducing database costs and operational complexity
The company’s core sales order management system processes roughly 100,000 invoices per day. A vast majority of the orders arrive through electronic data interchange that must be converted into JSON documents and processed in a MongoDB database. Given the rising pricing from MongoDB, cost became a concern for the company.
The three-person DBA team—two Oracle DBAs and one SQL Server DBA—assessed the feasibility of consolidating the MongoDB workload on its existing Oracle Exadata Database Machine platform running related IBM Sterling and custom order management systems to reduce cost and complexity. The company management initially doubted the migration could work without code changes that could potentially disrupt critical sales operations.
Solutions and results: Increased productivity and data-driven reporting
The combination of Oracle technical support and Oracle Database API for MongoDB helped ensure seamless data migration and connectivity to source applications for the company with no backend code changes and no application rewrites. Around the same time as the migration, S.P. Richards also seized an opportunity to increase its market share when a major competitor exited the logistics industry. Within a year, the company doubled in size.
The Exadata platform not only absorbed the MongoDB workload with at least the same performance as before the migration, but also scaled to accommodate the company’s dramatic rise in order processing and data volume—without the need to increase DBA head count. This significantly simplified data administration, requiring fewer systems. In addition, S.P. Richards was able to eliminate 100% of its annual MongoDB costs by leveraging its existing unlimited license agreement for Oracle AI Database.
In future, the staff hopes to use JSON relational duality views to build on their existing SQL skills and expand their access to larger data sets, as well as to improve decision-making through integration with the company’s standard Microsoft Fabric and Power BI reporting tools. The company is also migrating to Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer to help increase efficiency and enhance resiliency via cloud automation and disaster recovery.