[plug] DB Question

[Leon Brooks]

Dave T Burbidge wrote:
> Leon Brooks wrote:
>> Dave T Burbidge wrote:
>>> Has anybody set-up data replication from an NT box with SQL Server 6.5,
>>> to a LINUX box running Postgresql?

>> If so, what were they smoking? AFAIK, each replication method uses its own
>> unique (and no doubt proprietary, especially in the case of an MS product)
>> technique.

> ... and that's the problem I have ... in fact, I can't get the sucker to
> replicate to another 6.5 thing properly (but that's not a prob' for
> here) ... just that as I'm about to replace the server, I thought I
> might put a proper NOS on it ... :)
> ... and tests on an old 486 suggest Postgresql will work with our
> front-end (but I only used a subset of the DB, using MSAccess to copy
> test data across (and yes, it was a slow process :(

Once the data's out of licence-land you can use PERL, Python, TCL and a variety
of other scripts (even BASH via psql) to shuffle data around in large quantities
with improved efficiency. I have even used PHP to pull stuff out of MS-SQL as
plain vanilla ASCII SQL INSERT statements via a web browser (actually, wget) and
then dumped that into the target database (MySQL, in that case). Brave souls
could even do this every midnight or so with cron:

    lynx -source http://server/page.phtml | mysql newdbname

Microsoft would, naturally, recommend that you solved your problem by
``upgrading'' to (and paying for, pass the Internet Connector Licence) SQL
Server 7. The amount of money involved there is pretty staggering and could pay
for a good few weeks of intensive development on a not-so-costly Open (Libre)
system.

You will be pleased to know that a large (in dollars, not in seats) Perth-based
Gummint department is carefully considering (ie experimenting with) migrating
from MS-SQL to PostgreSQL, and also swapping most if not all of their Windows
workstations for diskless Linux workstations plus (where needed) Win4Lin.

-- 
Randal said it would be tough to do in sed.  He didn't say he didn't
understand sed.  Randal understands sed quite well.  Which is why he
uses Perl. :-) -- Larry Wall in <7874 at jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>