Retail & E-Commerce | Cloud Migration
Online optical retailer turns to Pythian to migrate legacy Oracle systems and unlock modernization capabilities with Google Bare Metal Solution.
This ecommerce retailer, founded in 2003, sells eyewear online to fill a gap in the market for more affordable, accessible prescription glasses.

Overview
This ecommerce retailer, founded in 2003, sells eyewear online to fill a gap in the market for more affordable, accessible prescription glasses. The company became one of the first online-only shops for affordable eyewear by cutting out the middleman and going directly to consumers. What started as a small, homegrown business in California has morphed into an e-commerce success story with more than 50 million frames sold to customers all over the world.
The ecommerce retailer has a robust digital marketing strategy and numerous campaigns that generate sales, with an emphasis on the customer’s mobile experience. The company’s e-commerce store was based on the Oracle Commerce (ATG) platform with Oracle Database 19c running in Rackspace. Their team was looking to move away from legacy systems and processes to leverage technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence—and ultimately enable more innovation in a retail market that has been quickly democratizing.
What we did
The Pythian team met with key stakeholders at the company to ensure they understood the needs of the business—both ahead of the December uptick in online traffic and sales, and going into the new year—to plan the migration from Oracle to BMS. Pythian conducted a technical assessment and performance health check of the company’s Oracle Database 19c RAC environment, optimizing and stabilizing the system to handle spikes in traffic.
Pythian presented the retailer with Google Cloud future state architectures and identified the pros and cons of each. Pythian also provided guidance on Oracle 19c Database edition options to optimize performance and scalability, including RAC and no-RAC options, as well as recommendations for Oracle Database performance measurements pre- and post-migration. Together, they assessed the pros and cons of the migration based on the goals of the business and discussed a strategic migration plan to move forward.
Key Outcomes
Pythian successfully and seamlessly migrated the company’s Oracle environment to Google Cloud Bare Metal Solution.
- The online optical retailer now has a bridge that gives them the flexibility to move their entire Oracle environment to the cloud, so they can modernize faster.
- Customers can now access a more responsive online experience.
- The company was able to meet aggressive timelines, allowing them to plan for the next phase on their road to modernization.
“I have worked with Pythian in the past and knew I could lean into their database experience to help us with our database projects here.”
Director of Software Engineering
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