Question Re: Migrating Sybase ASE to SQL in Technology Q&A

Migrating Sybase ASE to SQL

Former Member — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 20:30:26 GMT

Hi ASE Community,

I have a customer that is attempting to migrate ASE to SQL via the following method:

"To migrate Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) databases to SQL Server, we must connect to the Adaptive Server that contains the databases that we want to migrate. In our scenario, SSIS packages will create connections which point to Sybase database using Sybase ASE that is called Sybase ASE Data Provider in SQL Server."

What kinds of tools and requirements will this customer need?

Any guidance is greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

Re: Migrating Sybase ASE to SQL

former_member182090 — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 10:25:05 GMT

SInce this is an SAP forum, perhaps you should not expect too much support for moving away from an SAP databases... also your question seems to be more ab out MS SQL tools for which this isn;t the best forum either.

Re: Migrating Sybase ASE to SQL

marcin_najs — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 10:46:38 GMT

Hi Chris.

Your sentence has been taken straight from SQL Server Migration Assistant manual.

Please review this doc:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh302811(v=sql.110).aspx

Best Regards.

Marcin

Re: Migrating Sybase ASE to SQL

Former Member — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 20:26:50 GMT

Well said Rob!

Re: Migrating Sybase ASE to SQL

former_member89972 — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 21:10:22 GMT

Good luck.

Most of the database vendors -- SAP/Sybase included -- give you tools to migrate from "other" competing database vendors. Similarly MS also provides you some migration tool.

The data migration -- most of the time - is easy. What is difficult typically is migrating the "logic" in form of stored procedures, triggers, defaults, jobs (being run via any number of schedulers ), applications connecting to ASE directly or otherwise (e.g. linkserver), replication to other ASE etc. etc.

If it is really a demanding application supported by ASE then do not underestimate the efforts. You will really need to throw a lot of resources and testing at it.

A couple of places I worked I have seen the migration project (ASE to MSSQL) hit wall and go up in flames due to demanding performance expected.

So good luck again.

Avinash

Re: Migrating Sybase ASE to SQL

Former Member — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 23:23:54 GMT

Thanks Rob.

I don't frequent the Sybase side of things terribly often, so I suppose I was a little out of my element

Re: Migrating Sybase ASE to SQL

Former Member — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 23:24:54 GMT

Thank you Avinash. I do not deal with Sybase products terribly often, so I appreciate your insight very much.

Re: Migrating Sybase ASE to SQL

Former Member — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 01:55:09 GMT

Well said Avinash!

Re: Migrating Sybase ASE to SQL

Former Member — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 02:03:09 GMT

Good luck.

Re: Migrating Sybase ASE to SQL

Former Member — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 09:36:22 GMT

I've done a ASE -> MS-SQL migration - in my experience 90% of the task is easy - but depends what code has been written.

If you have a large amount of data I'd recommend splitting the data migration out from the

code migration.

Copy the data - using whatever tools you have (bcp) and then set up replication to feed ASE->MS-SQL. Spend a bit of time here taking advantage of some of the MS-SQL features - eg indexes - some covering indexes as you can have unique indexes with included columns.

Then migrate the code separately - this will give you a complete parallel system to test with.

MS T-SQL really to be a superset of ASE T-SQL so the MS conversion tool works pretty well.

The advise from MS is to remove the performance hints (forceplan index, hints, etc). Its worth trying but for us the disadvantages out-weighed the advantages.

Check all the setting you can use - like ansi null setting - they can be handled differently. There are a few other.

Quick note on performance - and this is only my personal experience. Out of the box - MS-SQL performance is better than ASE - but ASE has much more configuration options and when tuned (again in my personal experience) ASE can perform better. So whatever ASE machine you have, purchase a slightly bigger machine for MS-SQL and you should be fine (it'll only cost a bit more anyway).

Hope this helps.

Re: Migrating Sybase ASE to SQL

arthurkirchner — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 10:23:23 GMT

Hi,

I'd like to add this doc: Is is a good read, if you have to deal with both worlds:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/c/8/ec8d5025-7ef7-4dcc-a9f3-9c297cf5350e/ssmasybase.docx

HTH