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I’ve been a big fan of MySQL for quite a while, and one of the reasons is its ease and simplicity of use. I’m in the process of migrating a SQL Server database to MySQL and aside from the relief that moving away from SQL Server will bring, I have to mention MySQL’s Migration Toolkit. I can’t say enough good things about it. A simple tweak or two aside, the migration of both the schema and data has been without error. This is shocking to me. SQL Server seems to barf on some part of even the simplest of transfers using DTS, especially for remote type stuff, which is arguably the most common. Most of my SQL Server experience has been with 97 and 2000, so I suspect things have improved with the 2005, but, after using it for a while, it(the management tools) still feels like most MS products do to me, slow and way too bloated. My machine is fast, too: 2 gigs of RAM and just short of a 2.0 GHz processor. Even if the functionality of the administrative tools and utilities are improved or extended, MySQL is just a better overall experience. I’m not a DBA, so I’m sure this is hypocrisy to some. But I’m in the Ruby on Rails camp when it comes to databases. Like Rails, I need the best tool to handle most of the tasks required to accomplish most of the things a software developer needs a databse for. So when it comes to simplicity, speed, reliability, and don’t forget cost, of course, it’s hard to beat MySQL. But I digress..back to the migration.

The tool itself is simple to ues; a very straight forward wizard captures all your database details. Once all the connections are verified, there are two main steps: the schema and the data transfer. Both steps allow you to create the scripts, or to run them, or both. You can also create a migration script that can be run from the command line as means of back up, or getting a fresh copy of all your data. The bottom line here is that if you’ve been thinking about making the move to MySQL, don’t delay, and be sure to use the migration tool kit. By the way, in addition to SQL Server, the tool also supports Oracle, Access and generic Jdbc.