[ale] database conversion

[jimmyc at speedfactory.net (Jim Philips)]

On Tuesday 08 February 2005 09:35 pm, James P. Kinney III wrote:
> I am looking at a project that will involve migration of a MySql
> database to PostgreSQL. The original db has numerous design errors that
> are beginning to cause problems. The move to PostgreSQL will add the
> transaction capabilities that would have prevented the current problem
> causing the project (seqential transaction ID's would have been a great
> start!)
>
> As this will need to be a parallel pair of db's for a while to run final
> tests, I'm looking at pitfalls and processes others have used to migrate
> from one 24x7 db to another seamlessly. I'm also looking for pointers on
> getting identical data simultaneously into two seperate db's without
> having to rewrite the entire app first.

What you need is an ETL (extract, transform & load) program. It looks like 
there are several open source ones on Freshmeat, but I have no experience 
with any of them.