Urban Outfitters moves Sterling OMS to AlloyDB for PostgreSQL

Urban Outfitters, Inc. (URBN) migrated its IBM Sterling Order Management System from an 11TB Oracle database to Google Cloud's AlloyDB for PostgreSQL. The migration was driven by high Oracle licensing costs, operational complexity, and vendor lock-in concerns. The project involved a three-way collaboration between URBN, IBM, and Google Cloud, with dedicated engineers embedded in the process. Key technical elements included two read replicas for high availability, extensive query tuning, and iterative switchover testing — running the system on AlloyDB for a full day before switching back to Oracle — to build confidence before go-live. The result was significant TCO reduction, improved performance, and freedom from proprietary vendor constraints.