After having spent much time attempting to settle a point regarding my favourite pastime of provincial politics, it has come to my attention that there is a neglected readership here, which I do regret sincerely. Thus, ever interested to right what is wrong, I wish to dive right back on in and discuss what caught my eye the other week regarding updated Data Migration tools offered by Microsoft.  It was either the drop of support for the old tools, or the announcement of new ones that caught my eye from the Premier Newsletters we receive at work on regular basis, thanks to our Technical Account Manager from Microsoft.

These assistants, with support for Denali (!) will manage your change from one platform to SQL Server or These assistants, with even support for Denali (!) will manage your change from all other major RDBMS platform to SQL Server. Here are the links as posted on the SSMA (SQL Server Migration Assistant) Blog:

SSMA v5.1 is available for FREE and can be downloaded from the following:

• SSMA for MySQL v5.1  (notice how their primary target now is MySQL hahahha 🙂
• SSMA for Access v5.1
• SSMA for Oracle v5.1
• SSMA for Sybase v5.1

As for any migration, you should have a plan, therefore here is a Microsoft Project Template *, which you can find here, I have incorporated years of experience and feedback a few of those who exploited it, from the thousands of downloads so far.  I do not wish anyone to suffer from Karoshi during a migration, nor migraines, therefore please do not overlook the use of a project plan during a migration.  It is not something to just do on the fly J As mentioned in the original post on this subject back in March 2009 (omg, has it been that long since those days already!), the approach is to ensure you delve well into the domain of Project Management as a DBA must/should do from time to time, and err, to keep the PMs from meddling into pure DBA work.  To get a second opinion on migrations fromother key SQL Server blogs, meaning if you do not find what you are looking for here on SQL Server Centrals’ blogs, please see the SQL Server [current/former MVP] Blogs.

A quick nota bene at this planning stage of a project is that you should not skip the time estimatios, which in turn lead to the analysis of the critical path for the project.  There might be a point where you have to pool resources with another team-member or pull in a consultant to ensure project delivery timelines are met.  Somewhere along the critical path of the project you might want to take this proactive step to mitigate deadline risk. In this way, whole project planning with respect to time estimations is a predecessor to accomplishing this task. Furthermore, these types of documents have made it way, way easier to handle all the checklists required to place code into production.

Beware the notes sometimes might be French (or Franglais, as we bilinguals in Quebec call it). I just tend to mix up the references often enough. 

This template has a history. While migrating databases in early 2005 for the Artificial Insemination [of cows] Centre of Quebec (CIAQ) Mathieu Noel (his profile on linkedin.com) helped me out greatly while writing this document. This version has been retouched about four times so far, with one even for a bid on a United Nations project that was deemed the best by far, but not ‘cheap’ enough to satisfy the classic bureaucratic mediocrity required to satisfy the bean-counters of UNESCO’s colossal bureaucracy.  Maintaining PMI.org’s PMP certification also requires, not that I am hesitant either, Personal Development Units (need 20, and this article gives 30 apparently) to maintain the PMP certification before renewal next year.  I figure this is the best way to help out the DBA community and keep that certification going at the same time.

 * (extract Microsoft Project MPP file from Win Rar file, e.g. you can use RarLabs.com to extract)