Are you looking to migrate from Oracle to more modern and versatile solutions?

Oracle Forms first launched in 1983—long before smartphones, CI/CD pipelines, or cloud-native architectures existed. Today, organizations face:

• Escalating license & support fees tied to core-based pricing
• Shrinking talent pools—only ~2 % of developers still specialize in Forms
• DevOps roadblocks—no REST APIs, container support, or responsive design
• Digital-transformation mandates demanding micro-services, cloud, and mobile UX

While ~17 000 companies still run Oracle Forms, most now list “modernization” as a board-level priority. The good news? You can keep decades of business logic and gain the agility of open-source stacks—without a high-risk “big-bang” rewrite.

Step 1. Convert Oracle Forms to React/Angular with ORMIT™-OpenJava

Although Oracle is committed to supporting Oracle Forms for the foreseeable future, Oracle Reports is now officially deprecated. Given the close association between the two products, the case for migrating away from Oracle is significantly stronger. Oracle Forms migration to React/Angular is thus an obvious solution for IT teams wanting to benefit from one of the world’s most popular programing languages.

Every weakness in Oracle Forms is a strength in Open-Source Technologies. Starting with the costs advantages of an open-source Java/JS application that can be deployed on any cloud; the technology advantages of a JavaScript/HTML 5 modern application that will simply run on any modern browser without an Applet; as well as the available manpower to maintain your system for the years to come (one in three Developer in the world is a Java/JS Developer!).

Migrating Oracle Forms to React or Angular leveraging ORMIT™-OpenJava allows you to preserve and maintain years of customizations your organization invested in Forms while maintaining your business logic with a seamless and automated approach.

ORMIT™-OpenJava performs up to 95% automated code conversion, preserving:

• 95% automated conversion (triggers → JavaScript / Spring)
• 100 % of business logic (triggers → Java/JS & Spring)
• Key Mappings, LOVs, and Page Navigation
• Data validation, automatically re-implemented with Yup or custom rules

Step 2. Replace Oracle Reports with JasperReports via ORMIT™-Jasper

Jasper Reports is a Java-based solution. Being open source, it does not incur any licensing fees, and it is supported by an active developer community. Jasper Reports supports multiple export formats, including XLS, XML, CSV, HTML, PDF, and DOCX, and data sources such as JDBC, EJB, and POJO.

• License freedom – JasperReports is GPL-licensed; no per-core fees
• Omni-format output – PDF, XLSX, DOCX, HTML, CSV, JSON, REST
• Cloud & mobile-ready – embed dashboards in Angular, React, or native apps
• Active community – >150 k monthly downloads; plugins for Spring, Quarkus, Micronaut

Like Oracle Reports, Jasper supports flexible deployment options. Another clear benefit is its mobile-friendly design – a must-have in today’s mobile-first, remote working environment. Furthermore, Jasper Reports provides all of the functionalities of Oracle Reports, in addition to the aforementioned advantages.

The open-source licensing model of Jasper Reports is one of its key advantages, making it an ideal option for enterprises with the IT resources necessary for deploying, customizing, and maintaining it. However, even for those who do not have the resources to manage the software internally, there are many independent software vendors who can assume the responsibility instead.

ORMIT™-Jasper aligns report definitions (RDF, REP) to JRXML, auto-maps data sources, and validates pixel-perfect layout fidelity—cutting migration effort by 60–70 % versus manual rewrites.

Step 3. Move Oracle Database to PostgreSQL with ORMIT™-Cortex

After modernizing your Oracle Forms user interface and Oracle Reports, the final step is to liberate your data tier: migrate Oracle Database to PostgreSQL with ORMIT™-Cortex. Because PostgreSQL is 100 % open source, you immediately eliminate the unpredictable license, support, and audit fees that come with Oracle’s closed ecosystem—cutting total cost of ownership while ending vendor lock-in.

PostgreSQL also unlocks true deployment agility. As a mature, enterprise-grade RDBMS, it runs natively on every major cloud (AWS RDS, Google Cloud SQL, Azure Database for PostgreSQL) as well as on-prem containers and Kubernetes clusters, making it ideal for scalable hybrid or multi-cloud architectures. Over the past decade the open-source community has matched—or surpassed—commercial databases in performance, security, and scalability. A thriving marketplace of third-party providers now delivers 24/7 support with iron-clad SLAs, still without per-core license fees (e.g., PostgresPURE).

How ORMIT™-Cortex Streamlines the Journey

1. Assessment – automated scan of schemas, PL/SQL, and data volumes to produce a detailed effort and timeline matrix.
2. Segmentation – every object is tagged for either fully automated conversion or targeted manual refinement.
3. Execution – one-click schema translation, PL/SQL ➜ PL/pgSQL rewrite, and parallel data replication with zero-downtime cut-over. A typical 2-TB database migrates comfortably within a weekend maintenance window.

Why PostgreSQL?

• Feature parity – ACID compliance, partitions, materialized views.
• Horizontal scalability – any cloud, any container platform.
• Lower TCO – no edition or option fees; patches and upgrades are free.
• Rich extension ecosystem – PostGIS, TimescaleDB, logical replication, pgBouncer.
• Flexible support – enterprise subscriptions (EDB, CYBERTEC) or self-managed.

ORMIT™-Cortex automates schema translation, PL/SQL → PL/pgSQL conversion, and data migration with zero-downtime cutover. A typical 2-TB database migrates over a weekend maintenance window.

How these ORMIT™ solutions reduce your migration risk?

Any software or database migration carries a degree of risk, such as visual, business logic or cross-platform compatibility issues. These risks are greatly accentuated in the case of more complex software environments consisting of numerous interdependencies.

Overcoming these challenges requires an optimal blend of automation to address the problem of scale and industry-specific expertise to address any issues that automation alone cannot. This can be achieved using a combination of the largely automated tools ORMIT™-OpenJava, ORMIT™-Jasper, and ORMIT™-Cortex.

This approach greatly reduces risk, particularly with regards to human error. After all, given the size of today’s enterprise data or logical sets, automation is now a necessity as well. During the process, all database and form structures, code objects, and business logic will be preserved, thus remaining identical to those in the original Oracle equivalents. With similar coding structures between both platforms, the same or modernized appearance, the same transaction handling, and the same shortcuts and keymapping, the learning curve is minimal for both the developers and the end users. Together, these benefits reduce the cost and time involved and keep any disruption to routine business operations to an absolute minimum.

1. Automated at scale –  >5 Million lines of code converted monthly across projects
2. Iterative delivery – migrate module-by-module; rollback always possible
3. One vendor accountability – RENAPS architects oversee Forms, Reports, and DB streams end-to-end
4. Predictable timeline & budget – fixed-price SOW backed by tool-generated effort estimates
5. Minimal change management – identical shortcuts, workflows, and security roles mean users ramp in days

Who should migrate from Oracle to open source?

• ISVs with large multi-tenant Oracle Forms codebases seeking SaaS economics
• Enterprises paying >$100 k/year in Oracle licenses & support
• Public-sector agencies mandated to adopt open standards (e.g., JVM, PostgreSQL)
• Global companies prioritizing cloud neutrality and avoiding vendor lock-in

This three-step solution is ideally suited to any enterprise computing environment based on a custom-made in-house Oracle Forms deployment, as well as those deployed by independent software vendors. Moreover, any customized Oracle Forms apps that have been added to an existing ERP system are good candidates to be migrated to open source.

The Oracle database migration to PostgreSQL is ideally suited to any in-house Oracle Database, whether it is based on Oracle Forms or not doesn’t make any difference.

To summarize the process, those running Oracle Forms and Reports can migrate their apps to Java, the Reports can be migrated over to Jasper Reports, after which it will be possible to migrate the databases from Oracle to PostgreSQL. Those running an Oracle Database that is not used for a Forms/Reports system can migrate their databases to PostgreSQL regardless of which application runs on it.

This approach will allow enterprises to benefit from the highly flexible and scalable open-source software ecosystem, instead of being held back by legacy software and a single support and licensing model.

In the end, there is no reason for enterprises to be stuck with legacy Oracle Forms/Reports or Oracle Database technology. With rapid change being the only constant in today’s highly technology-driven world, having that degree of flexibility is crucial for staying relevant in the years to come.

RENAPS helps organizations modernize their computing infrastructures with managed migration services and expert guidance. Give us a call today, and let’s talk about your legacy migration challenges.