In many businesses, critical information is typically held in one or more databases. Should a company possess employees who understand and work with databases, matters of maintenance updating are taken care of.
However, for those businesses that have database savvy personnel, and even those who do not, converting information between database types can prove difficult at times.
For database administrators and database programmers, knowing the particulars surrounding the syntax and operation of a brand of database is important to their job. However, just because one person understands SQL queries, does not necessarily mean that they know how it translates into Oracle.
In this instance, an Oracle aligned person and SQL trained person may both have to sit down and discuss how to move data between SQL and Oracle, or vice versa.
Thankfully, there are quite a few translation and conversion software packages available to help overcome this obstacle. One such software title, the ESF Database Migration Toolkit (found here), is capable of converting between major database types, such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL, MySQL, IBM DB2, and InterBase.
This program can also convert to and from Microsoft Access, Comma Delimited files, and Microsoft Excel. All of these and more can be found when you open up and use the ESF conversion wizard.
Before getting too deep into the migration wizard, make note of the Settings button at the bottom of the window. You will see this button more than once throughout the migration process. The Settings button opens up a separate selection of options that you will not in the wizard itself.
Within the Settings selection, you can instruct the wizard to take certain actions, depending on the environment to which you intend to migrate. For example, in the General tab, the “If Table Exists” area allows you to let the wizard know what to do in case there is a similar table in your target database.
Also, the “Replace Table / Field Name Characters” lets you covert a variety of non-alphanumeric characters to a specific one, should you have the need. The CSV/Text tab contains other details you may need if converting to a CSV file type. The other tabs, Oracle, PostgreSQL and IBM DB2 contain options to change fields to upper case, lower case, or nothing (no change).
Moving on with our data conversion, the second page contains the selections for our data source. Depending on what data source you choose, the fields for initial information collection will change accordingly.
If you choose Microsoft SQL, if will prompt you for the server, port number, user name and password. Should it be an Access file, for instance, just click on the Browse button to find your file in Windows Explorer.
Having completed the Data Source section, we move on to picking a destination. The only difference here is the intended target.
The next step in the migration process offers greater control than in the previous sections. At this point, in the Select Source Table(s) and View(s) screen, you are looking at a list of the current database’s tables. In this screen, you can preview the tables, choose to overwrite the target database, as well as select other options, by clicking on the small button in the Transform (third) column.
Should you venture into the Transform options, you will be able to manipulate the table, to a degree, prior to a completed migration. By default, Append Data is selected should the migration process discover existing tables.
If you select Overwrite Table, you can now alter the Type, Size, and be able to allow Null on any of the listed fields. You may also choose to bring over foreign keys, indexes, and auto-incrementing data.
When ready, you can click on Ok to return to the previous screen. Now you should be ready to complete the database migration. After you click on Next, you have only to click on the Submit button. A synopsis of the migration sequence will appear in the Log area of this screen, which can be copied to the Clipboard for reference purposes. You can now open up the database information in its new format.
It would be safe to say that this type of software is an incredible time saver. At $219.00 for a copy of the Standard Edition, this software easily pays for itself with the buyer not paying out extra funds for consulting work, or purchasing data conversion services.
I found dbload better tool to migrate database when compared to this tool.