Migrate from MS Access to MySQL
Some organizations find it quite difficult to make use of MS Access for their business, and this limits their service delivery to some extent. For this reason, an application such as MySQL was created, such that would enhance business proficiency and reliability. In this article, I have provided guidelines that will take you on a step by step migration process from MS Access to MySQL.
Main Reasons to Migrate from MS Access to MySQL
Hereunder are numerous advantages of migrating from MS Access to MySQL database management system:
Deployment: MySQL can actually be integrated with MS Access. User can apply MySQL options as a data storage and still apply MS Access as a front-end to their data. For instance, certain users can cope with the data by applying the standard MySQL client programs, and others may work with GUI applications. Integrating web servers like Apache is best done with MySQL. This is why developers can work with it on any modern script languages like PHP, Perl, Python etc. What’s best? All of MySQL components are free, and can be accessed through web browsers that provide platform-independent.
Multiple-user access. MS Access has data sharing on file access level capabilities, and this is limited to local use, unlike the MySQL which can handle simultaneous users, granting user more control over databases.
Security. MS Access files can be said to be sort of insecure, as anyone can access its data. Though there is a password option for the database, it could still be easily broken into by uncertified users. But MySQL server has a stronger security management over its files as it grants permissions and roles for relational DBMS.
Cost. MS Access is a commercial application. MySQL is distributed under open source license, and has free tools that can equally reduce the bills attached to the TCO of administration and development for the database.
How to Migrate from MS Access to MySQL
The simplest way is to move the data from the source files, convert it to the destination format and load it into the destination database. Here are some other options through which this migration can be performed, some require ODBC connection to MySQL server, to use this user would require MySQL Connector/ODBC driver. Underlisted are other migration options:
Use Microsoft Access to Export Data
The simplest way to do this is to export the data from MS Access as a text file. Then imported into MySQL using ‘LOAD DATA’ option or mysqlimport tool. To use this option, no special conversion tools are needed, even if there is no MySQL client in the system, simply create data file and transfer to MySQL machine. The only task in this pattern of export is that MySQL tables must be manually created before data is loaded.
Generate MySQL Scripts
The other option for exporting files is to use a script that reads source tables and converts same into MySQL script files. Normally, the scripts should contain SQL options to create tables and for filling, and editing the tables. Here, database admin can import script files to MySQL with the console client or phpMyAdmin.
Study additional aspects of MS Access to MySQL migration at https://www.convert-in.com/docs/acc2sql/intro.htm
