Data Migrations Woes

time to read 1 min | 197 words

For some reason, customers insist on putting their data in a database, which is all fine and dandy. But then they also insist on taking it out! Which is hardly fine at all.

The fun part starts when the source is a little known database called Oracle, and the destination is a new arival from out of town, who goes by the nick name SQL Server.

Fun stuff that I run into today:

  • PK in Oracle are Number, in SQL Server, it is interpreted as double or float. Do try to query for Id = 12324.432154
  • Wierd PK - such as 1,001,0004,001,000 - a real PK that I run into today. No idea how it got to this point.

I am using both P/L SQL Developer and SQL Plus, and I have to say that both have some distinct advantages over SQL Server Management Studio. Just Ctrl+Click is an invaluable assest when you try to figure out what you are doing.