CDC & Reverse CDC

Telecommunications

United States · Sep 2025

Oracle to AlloyDB — Striim forward & reverse CDC across 9 countries, zero data loss

Hughes (an EchoStar company) engaged Newt Global to lead a mission-critical Oracle to AlloyDB migration for 1.8 TB of e-commerce data spanning 9 countries — using Striim for forward and reverse Continuous Data Capture (CDC), and DMAP for schema validation. Cutover time was reduced from 14 hours to 3 hours.

Oracle → AlloyDB

Striim CDC

Reverse CDC

1.8 TB · 9 Countries

DMAP

Google Cloud Platform

Customer

Hughes Network Systems (EchoStar)

  • Industry
  • Location
  • Migration
  • Data volume
  • Countries
  • Cutover time
  • Reverse CDC window
  • Published
  • Telecommunications
  • United States
  • Oracle → AlloyDB
  • 1.8 TB
  • 9 countries
  • 14 hrs → 3 hrs
  • 10 days
  • September 10, 2025
Download case study PDF
0 TB

E-commerce data migrated across 9 countries

14→3

Weeks from engagement to production cutover

0 days

Reverse CDC implementation window — a global first

Zero

Data loss across all countries at cutover

Background

Hughes Network Systems, now operating as part of EchoStar, provides broadband equipment, managed services, and end-to-end network operations for millions of consumers, businesses, governments, airlines, and communities worldwide. Hughes supplies more than half the global satellite terminal market to leading operators.

Following the successful 12-week Oracle to AlloyDB migration of the Hughes ECOM application, the next critical challenge was ensuring continuous, uninterrupted data synchronization across 9 countries during and after cutover. With e-commerce operations running live across multiple regions, downtime or data loss was simply not an option. The solution required both forward CDC (Oracle → AlloyDB) and an unprecedented reverse CDC capability (AlloyDB → Oracle) as a live rollback safety net.

The challenge

Hughes’s e-commerce application is revenue-critical — any disruption directly impacts operations and customer experience across 9 countries simultaneously. The stakes were exceptionally high: post-migration issues could trigger SLA breaches, reputational damage, and significant financial losses.

The most complex requirement was implementing Striim-based reverse CDC — keeping Oracle “warm” and continuously updated from AlloyDB for a seamless rollback capability. This type of continuous reverse migration running for more than 3 days had extremely limited global precedent, making it one of the most technically demanding database migration challenges in the industry.

Key obstacles

  • Mission-critical e-commerce platform — downtime or data loss is unacceptable across 9 countries
  • Post-migration issues risk SLA breaches and reputational harm across multiple regions
  • Striim CDC for continuous reverse migrations beyond 3 days had very limited global expertise
  • Need for a swift, seamless rollback to Oracle with zero data loss if cutover issues arose
  • Coordinating multi-country go-live with synchronized cutover windows and rollback readiness
  • Validating failover by processing live AlloyDB orders through the Oracle application

The solution

Newt Global designed and executed a comprehensive bidirectional CDC strategy using Striim as the data streaming backbone, with DMAP handling schema and data validation throughout. The approach was built around rehearsal-driven risk reduction — running multiple full dress rehearsals before any production cutover was attempted.

Forward CDC — Oracle to AlloyDB

Striim was configured to capture all Oracle transaction log changes in real time and stream them continuously to AlloyDB, minimizing the data gap at cutover to seconds. This ensured both databases stayed in near-perfect sync throughout the transition period.

Reverse CDC — AlloyDB back to Oracle

Simultaneously, Striim's reverse CDC kept Oracle continuously updated from AlloyDB post-cutover. This kept Oracle fully "warm" — ready for an immediate, zero-data-loss rollback if any issues emerged. A 10-day reverse CDC window was maintained, a rare feat at this scale.

Multiple dress rehearsals with live failover validation

The team conducted repeated end-to-end dress rehearsals before any country was moved to production. Failover was validated by actually processing AlloyDB orders through the Oracle application — confirming the rollback path was fully operational under real transaction conditions.

Detailed cutover plan with RACI

A step-by-step cutover plan with a clear RACI matrix was developed, assigning ownership across Newt, Hughes, and Striim teams. This governance structure enabled the team to reduce overall cutover time from 14 hours to just 3 hours through rehearsal-driven optimization.

DMAP for schema and data validation

Throughout the migration, DMAP was used to validate schema conversion and data integrity between Oracle and AlloyDB, ensuring that every table, row count, and data type matched expectations before each country's go-live window was opened.

Cutover journey

The path to a 3-hour production cutover was built through disciplined rehearsal and iterative refinement — each run revealing new optimizations and tightening the team’s execution.

Phase 1

Initial assessment & Striim architecture design
Newt Global evaluated the Hughes ECOM data landscape, designed the forward and reverse CDC topology using Striim, and defined the 9-country go-live sequencing strategy.

Phase 2


Forward CDC setup & stabilization

Striim pipelines were configured and tuned for Oracle-to-AlloyDB change capture across all 9 country datasets. DMAP ran continuous validation to confirm data parity between source and target.

Phase 3

Reverse CDC implementation (10-day window)
Reverse CDC streams were activated, keeping Oracle updated in real time from AlloyDB. The 10-day sustained reverse CDC implementation was a rare global achievement in enterprise database migration.

Phase 4

Dress rehearsals with live failover validation
Multiple full dress rehearsals were conducted, including live validation of the rollback path by processing AlloyDB orders through the Oracle application. Each rehearsal cut hours off the projected cutover time.

Phase 5

Production cutover — 9 countries, 3 hours
All 9 countries were successfully migrated to AlloyDB on EchoStar’s e-commerce platform. What began as a projected 14-hour cutover was achieved in 3 hours — with zero data loss and minimal business disruption.

The result

All 9 countries were moved from Oracle to AlloyDB on EchoStar’s e-commerce platform smoothly, with minimal disruption and risk. The 14-hour projected cutover window was reduced to just 3 hours through rehearsal-driven optimization — an outcome that had seemed impossible at the outset of the project.

9 countries

Migrated to AlloyDB simultaneously with zero disruption to live operations

14 → 3 hrs

Cutover time slashed through multiple rehearsals and RACI-driven execution

10 days

Sustained reverse CDC — a rare global first for enterprise-scale migrations
Data integrity maintained across all countries throughout cutover and rollback window

A new gold standard in database migration

The success of this project established a new industry benchmark — the first successful 10-day bidirectional Striim CDC implementation at multi-country enterprise scale. Newt Global's reverse CDC expertise is now recognized as being on par with Striim's own engineering teams.

Technology stack

Oracle Database

AlloyDB for PostgreSQL

Striim (CDC platform)

DMAP

Forward CDC

Reverse CDC

Schema Validation

Data Integrity Validation

Google Cloud Platform

Key outcomes

  • 9 countries migrated with zero data loss
  • Cutover time: 14 hours reduced to 3 hours
  • 10-day reverse CDC — a global first at this scale
  • Oracle kept "warm" for seamless rollback capability
  • Multiple dress rehearsals with live failover validation
  • DMAP ensured schema and data parity throughout
  • New gold standard set in enterprise DB migration

What is Striim CDC?

Striim is an enterprise-grade real-time data integration and streaming platform. Change Data Capture (CDC) continuously tracks and streams database transactions, enabling near-zero downtime migrations. Reverse CDC extends this by streaming changes back to the source database — keeping it live as a rollback target.

About Hughes Network Systems

Hughes, an EchoStar company, provides broadband equipment and services, managed services with smart software-defined networking, and end-to-end network operations for millions worldwide. Hughes supplies more than half the global satellite terminal market.

About Newt Global Consulting

Newt specializes in database and app migration services on cloud — both heterogeneous and homogeneous — in half the time and cost. DMAP is Newt’s end-to-end migration accelerator for Oracle and SQL Server to Cloud SQL and AlloyDB PostgreSQL.

Learn more about DMAP →

Planning a mission-critical migration?

Newt Global’s CDC expertise — now on par with Striim’s own teams — ensures zero data loss at any scale.

Schedule a demo →
"The Newt team's reverse CDC expertise has evolved to be on par with Striim's own. Their end-to-end understanding is crucial for minimizing database migration risks for enterprise clients. A rare feat — the successful 10-day reverse CDC implementation for so many countries signals a growing trend as enterprises undertake mission-critical projects."
Mridul Malayanil
Vice President, Hughes Network Systems
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