Migrating Other Database Types to Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL DB

One of the growing selling points of Microsoft Azure is the ability to host SQL Server databases. Azure does offer options for utilizing other database types, making it a very open data platform, but Microsoft makes using SQL Server in the Cloud much easier and much more affordable.

Microsoft provides Migration Assistant utilities that can be used to migrate Access, Oracle, MySQL, and Sybase database types to SQL Server for both on-premises and Azure-based implementations. Microsoft Access, I remember, used to have a migration function built into it, but it was severely lacking. The Migration Assistants make the migration process robust and functional.

The Migration assistants can be run on Windows 7 and later, but shares the following additional requirements:

For each Migration Assistant download (except for Microsoft Access), there's also an extension pack that needs to be installed.

Here are the downloads:

Microsoft Access database. Additional requirements: DAO provider version 12.0 or 14.0. Microsoft SQL Server Native Client (SNAC) version 10.5 and above.

Oracle Database. Additional requirements: Oracle Client 9.0 or a later version, and connectivity to the Oracle databases that you want to migrate. The Oracle client version must be the same version as, or a later version than, the Oracle database version

MySQL Database. Additional requirements: MySQL Connector/ODBC v5.1.

Sybase Database. Additional requirements: The Sybase OLEDB/ADO.Net/ODBC provider and connectivity to the Sybase ASE database server that contains the databases you want to migrate.