SQL Server to MySQL is one of the most popular scenarios of transferring database between different DBMS. Before running such database migration, it is necessary to validate capabilities and dependability of the strategy that will allow to avoid risk of data loss and corruption and to decrease the system downtime. Applications market provides wide variety of exclusive tools to automate MS SQL to MySQL conversion. These kind of products can copy all database objects from your source database management system to your target including table structures along with necessary attributes (default values, null flag, etc), data, indexes, foreign keys and views.

There are fundamental capabilities that must be provided by every advanced SQL Server to MySQL database migration tool: 

  • Migration of the most import objects such schemas, tables, indexes, constraints, data
  • High performance of database migration that is at least 20000 rows per second on a modern hardware platform
  • Support of all versions of SQL Servers including Azure SQL and MySQL including forks and SAAS variations
  • Command line support
  • Support for Unicode

SQL Server to MySQL converter is one of such advanced database migration tools developed by Intelligent Converters. This is a software vendor focused on database conversion and synchronization since 2001. This database migration tool offers all features mentioned and it has more benefits.

If the target MySQL server does not accept direct connection due to security reasons or virtual hosting limitations, SQL Server to MySQL converter can export the data into a local script file. Following this approach, the source database is exported into SQL statements to create tables along with indexes and constraints and fill them with the records. Afterwards the database administrator or any other related individual can import this file to MySQL server while using standard tools like phpMyAdmin or command line client.

Unique migration projects may require copying of partial data from or merge multiple tables right into a single one. SQL Server to MySQL converter can process result of SELECT queries running against SQL Server database for those migration projects.

If user needs to customize table definitions during migration, the program provides feature known as “custom column mapping”. This function allows to alter name, type, default value and NULL-attribute for any column of SQL Server table as well as remove particular columns from conversion.

To make migration process a lot more flexible, the converter allows to specify MySQL table type (ISAM, MyISAM, HEAP, InnoDB or BDB) and charset for text columns in the destination database.

When calculating the conversion effectiveness, you should think about the database volume, complexity of table structures and resources. The normal speed of conversion delivered by MS SQL to MySQL tool is around 10000 of records per second on a modern system.

In conclusion, the software convert SQL Server views into MySQL format as ‘CREATE VIEW’ SQL-queries with support for longer than 90% of all possible syntax patterns including embedded MS SQL functions without direct equivalent in MySQL including: DATEPART, DATENAME, STRING_AGG, TRANSLATE, etc. Note, that SQL Server APPLY operator isn’t supported in views.