Guide on Database Migration from MySQL to PostgreSQL
For years PostgreSQL and MySQL are recognized as two popular open-source relational database management systems (RDBMS) with their own unique features and strengths. However, for corporate scale data warehouses, PostgreSQL offers significant advantages over MySQL. These include high availability and fault tolerance in distributed environments, faster query execution and better performance in large databases, and better scalability.
To migrate database from MySQL to PostgreSQL, organizations need to use a specialized automation tool to mitigate the risk of data loss or corruption due to human error. There are free and commercial tools that can fully or partially automate MySQL to Postgres database migration. Free tools usually require a lot of prerequisites and preparation steps.
For example, these are necessary steps to migrate MySQL database using Pgloader:
- Install (compile from sources) Pgloader
- Create target PostgreSQL database and roles
- Create a dedicated MySQL user and manage certificates (if it is necessary)
- Run migration
Another popular solution for MySQL to PostgreSQL database migration Py-mysql2pgsql requires even more steps:
- Prepare the environment (install Python, MySQL-python, psycopg2, PyYAML, pytz)
- Install py-mysql2pgsql
- Create YAML configuration file that specifies migration parameters
- Run migration
For those users who is not comfortable with command line and has no deep expertise in system administration tasks, it is reasonable to use commercial tools for MySQL to PostgreSQL database migration since those tools are easy to use and have intuitive user-friendly graphic interface. One such tool is MySQL-to-PostgreSQL developed by Intelligent Converters, a software vendor specializing in database conversion, migration, and synchronization. This tool implements direct reading and writing of data without using middleware libraries or components, making it a popular choice for migrating data from MySQL to PostgreSQL.
MySQL-to-PostgreSQL is compatible with all versions of MySQL and PostgreSQL running on Linux/Unix/Windows platforms, including forks such as MariaDB and Percona. It also works with all popular PaaS variations of DBMS such as Azure for MySQL, Amazon RDS, Google cloud and Heroku. The product also offers command line support for scripting and scheduling the database migration procedure.
In addition to these features, MySQL-to-PostgreSQL converter offers several other useful options for migrating data. For example, it allows users to merge or sync existing PostgreSQL databases with MySQL data, filter particular records for migration using ‘Select’ queries, and rename, change the type and attributes, or exclude some columns from migration. If the PostgreSQL server doesn’t allow remote connection, MySQL-to-PostgreSQL converter also provides an option to export the MySQL database into an SQL script, which can be imported to PostgreSQL using pgAdmin or psql standard tools.
Do not forget to back up your databases before database migration as it might impact the data integrity. Even after the database migration is completed, recurrent backup procedures are also reasonable to prepare for possible data loss disasters.
Overall, migrating from MySQL to PostgreSQL can provide significant benefits for corporate scale data warehouses. However, organizations need to carefully plan and execute the migration process using specialized tools like MySQL-to-PostgreSQL to ensure that data is migrated safely and accurately. By doing so, organizations can leverage the advantages offered by PostgreSQL for high availability, fault tolerance, faster query execution, and better scalability.