Exporting/Importing Blob data from one SQL vendor to another

[john.allen]

Hi,

I have a solution that has about 3000 images and is running under Servoy 3.5/SQL Anywhere 9. I would like to move the solution from SQL Anywhere to Postgres or possibly later MS SQL Server and upgrade the solution to Servoy 6. However I'm not sure how to export that image data from SQL Anywhere 9 and then import it into Postgres or SQL Server. Trying to do it all in one step from Servoy by including the data in the solution doesn't work as it fails every time with a 'java.lang.NullPointerException'. But with exporting it I'm not sure exactly how to export blob/image data and then import it...I've never really worked with images other than using Servoy to import them directly from the file system.

[mboegem]

Hi John,

can't you use Servoy to copy the data from one col to the other?

I moved quite some data from SQL Anywhere to PG a few weeks ago.
As I couldn't use Servoy to copy the data, I've been trying to find a tool which I found:
http://www.sqlmanager.net/en/products
I used Data Pump for PostgreSQL myself, which was very convenient.
Please do note, copying blobs can be a lengthy process...

Hope this helps

[john.allen]

Yes I felt I could use Servoy just to copy the images from one to the other. I was thinking though that that would be really, really slow. I know it is slow when working with images but that felt like it would be just too slow. How did you like the Data Pump? I do have one Windows XP machine I could use for doing this. Price doesn't seem too bad.

[mboegem]

Data pump is great.
You can even just tell it to create a new DB for you and just 'go'.
It will create the DB, tables, primary keys, indices. Once that process has been done, it'll start copying your data.
This is the 'long version', but you're in charge of what you want data pump to do.

There were some minor bugs in the version I started with, but: support is great and bugs I came across have been fixed...
Pricing is very good. I'd recommend using the trial version (full working copy, apart from the restriction on amount of records it'll copy), so you can judge for yourself.