Migrating from Microsoft Access to MySQL

Do I need to migrate to MySQL?

Using MySQL server as a data storage instead of Microsoft Access offers several benefits: high performance, cross-Platforming, multiple users access, strong security system and much more. So, if you are constructing a complex multi-user system, you defenitiely need to migrate data from Access to MySQL.

But if MS Access data is used by a single user and the data file is simply copied to a new machine when it needs to be moved, there is not much benefit to using MySQL in such a situation.

Migration Strategies

There is the standard way to migrate Microsoft Access data to MySQL server. MS Access can export its tables to a variety of formats, including ODBC. Using this feature you will be able to export an Access table to MySQL via Connector/ODBC ODBC driver provided by MySQL AB. To migrate MS Access table to MySQL server right-click on the table and select "Export" option. After several steps your data will be exported to MySQL.

Is this method enough for you? If your MS Access database is small and does not have complex structure, the answer is "yes". Otherwise, you should be aware that Access will not export index information with the data. You will need to build indexes on your tables manually after exporting them. Also there are some difference in data types between Microsoft Access and MySQL. One example would be the CURRENCY data type: MySQL does not have a CURRENCY data type, instead it creates a column with the definition DECIMAL(19,4) for the same purpose. While MS Access supports Unicode by defaylt, MySQL does not so tightly bind character sets to field types. Instead it allows each text field to be bound to any number of character sets, including Unicode. Again, you will have to specify it manually if you need to support Unicode in the resulting MySQL database.

Benefits of using Access-to-MySQL converter