As an IT professional working for a small to mid-sized organization you are not only in charge of the servers, desktops, firewalls, routers, switches and mobile devices… you’re the chief, cook and bottle washer. One of the tasks that threw me for a loop when I first started was working with databases, NOT MY REALM, way out of my comfort zone. In time though I got proficient enough to manage databases and I have been able to write and teach about SQL Server from the Network Administrators perspective.
The one thing that still fills me with dread is the idea of migrating from one database to another. Now I am not talking about updating from SQL 2005 to 2008 or from Oracle 10g to 11g, these do a good job 99% of the time in taking care of themselves. I am talking about moving a database from Oracle to SQL or from SQL to Postgre SQL. In fact, I have had a few requests to help out and I have passed these projects up, simply too complex for a part-time, sort-of database person.
However, there is a tool I recently discovered which can be a huge help in not only migrating databases; it can help migrate some older or perhaps outgrown databases, like FoxPro, dBase or Access. This tool can also help in migrating data sources (CSV, text or Excel) into a database.
The tool is called the ESF Database Migration Toolkit . The ESF Database Migration Toolkit provides an easy to follow wizard that allows you to migrate databases from one format to another in three steps. Besides being simple the tool is also powerful. You can also rename tables, change datatype or filter data in the migration. The toolkit will migrate between different schemas and it migrates over Primary keys, indexes, LOB and Auto-ID’s. I ran it on a few test databases ( migrating SQL to MySQL) and I was surprised at the speed.
The ESF Database Migration Toolkit comes in Standard and Professional (allows you to save/load migrations as a job, run as a scheduled Windows task, or use command line tools). The professional version is less than $300 for a single user and comes with one-year of upgrades and service. So if you find your need to migrate a database, don’t pick up that phone just yet. Try the ESF Database Migration Toolkit; of course it would be prudent to try it on a backup of your database first.
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Ron Barrett, Director of e-Strategy for ClipTraining , is an independent trainer, author and consultant. He has been a technology professional for over 12 years, working for several major financial services firms and dotcoms. Ron is a specialist in network infrastructure, security, and IT management. He is the author of Office Communications Server 2007 R2: How-To , as well as co-author of Windows Server 2008: How-To and The Administrator’s Guide to Microsoft Office 2007 Servers. Ron has been a co-author or technical editor for several other books on Windows administration. Along with book writing, Ron has contributed to several industry magazines such as Redmond, Datamation and Windows IT Pro. Beyond writing, Ron has spoken at several technology conferences for CPAmerica, AICPA and MCP’s TECHMENTOR. Recently Ron has joined ClipTraining as the Director of e-Strategy in an effort to further the company’s presence via the Internet and social networking channels.
Ron's latest book, Windows Server 2008 How-To has been selected as the September 2009 book giveaway on Microsoft Subnet. To enter the monthly book giveaway, visit the Microsoft Subnet home page.
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