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.
Striim-powered bidirectional CDC architecture for zero-downtime cutover and live rollback
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.
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.
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.