2009 15 Dec

Migrating From Microsoft Access To MySQL

Before migrating from Microsoft Access to MySQL, you should first ask yourself, if you really need it. Yes, there might be several benefits in using MySQL for multi-user, high performance, strong security database. That is why if you are building a complex system, you should definitely transfer your data from Access to MySQL. But if Access database is used by only one user and if the record is just copied to a new machine, then it is not really necessary to use MySQL.

If you still need to move data from MS Access to MySQL, there is a standard way to do that. Access allows you to export its tables to different formats. So, applying this feature, you will be able to migrate from Access to MySQL using the Connector/ODBC driver, which is provided by MySQL. In order to do that, select “Export” option when you right-click on the table. The follow several steps and the data will be transferred to MySQL.

The above method can be enough for you, if your database is small and has no complex structure. You should know that index information is not exported with the Access data. After exporting your Access tables, you will need to build indexes manually. MS Access and MySQL also have some differences in data types. For example, in MySQL you will not find Currency data type. Instead, it has a column named Decimal for the same purposes. Another difference is that Access has Unicode by default, when MySQL doesn’t really ties field types to character sets. MySQL lets each text field to be tied to any amount of character sets as well as Unicode. And if you need the resulting MySQL database to support Unicode, you should also specify it manually.

You can also use another approach for migration Access to MySQL. You can use third party program to handle the migration for you. There are many special converter programs that will provide you with easy, fast and effective way of performing the migration from Access to MySQL. And even though it is very easy to handle, such conversion programs provide enough power and capabilities to convert large and complex MS Access database files. The program also provides accurate results, because it performs all needed data transformations, converts all indexes and table relationships, supports all versions of MS Access as well as its attributes, covers multibyte sets of characters and many more. As you can see it is a very useful tool to have in case you need to export Access to MySQL. And if you want to have more control over the export or you don’t have the access to MySQL destination server, such converter program can transfer data to the MYSQL dump file.

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