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 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 & if the record is just copied to a new machine then 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 the table. The follow several steps & the data will be transferred to MySQL.

The above method can be enough for you if your database is small & has no complex structure. You should know that index information not exported with the Access data. After exporting your Access tables you will need to build indexes manually. MS Access & MySQL also have some differences data types. For example MySQL you will not find Currency data type. Instead 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 character sets as well as Unicode. And if you need the resulting MySQL database to support Unicode you should also specify 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 & effective way performing the migration from Access to MySQL. And even though is very easy to handle such conversion programs provide enough power & capabilities to convert large & complex MS Access database files. The program also provides accurate results because performs all needed data transformations converts all indexes & table relationships supports all versions MS Access as well as its attributes covers multibyte sets characters & many more. As you can see is a very useful tool to have 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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