Data Migration Techniques across DBMS by Using Metadata

Abstract: The data migration process is usually needed when there is a change in system, format, or storage type. Currently, there are several techniques and tools for migrating data, for example, CSV files, ODBC, SQL Dump, and so on. Inappropriately not all of these techniques can be implemented for migrating data between two different DBMS. This research describes a data migration technique that can be used to migrate data across DBMS. The data migration technique described makes use of existing metadata in each DBMS. The data migration process described here goes through three stages, namely capture, convert and construct. A prototype was built to test this data migration technique. By using the HR schema, cross-DBMS data migration trials were carried out between Oracle and MySQL. Using this technique, full-schema data migration takes an average of 20.43 seconds from Oracle DBMS to MySQL and 12.96 seconds for the reverse scenario. As for partial data migration, it takes an average of 5.95 seconds from Oracle DBMS to MySQL and 2.19 seconds for the reverse scenario