SQL Server → MySQL / MariaDB

📖 Overview & Scope

This SOP covers a one-time full copy (schema + data) of a SQL Server source database into an existing MySQL 8.0 or MariaDB 10.6+ target, using the Endrias Bridge Assessment and Migration tabs. Type conversions are applied automatically — see the Type Conversions reference at the bottom of this document for the complete mapping table.

✅ Prerequisites — Source (SQL Server)

-- Grant minimum permissions (run on source SQL Server)
USE EndriasBridge;
CREATE USER MigrationUser FOR LOGIN MigrationUser;
ALTER ROLE db_datareader ADD MEMBER MigrationUser;
GRANT VIEW DATABASE STATE TO MigrationUser;

✅ Prerequisites — Target (MySQL / MariaDB)

Endrias Bridge does not create the target database — it must exist before you run Step 1. Run the following on the MySQL/MariaDB server before connecting:

-- 1. Create the target database with utf8mb4 charset (required for NVARCHAR mapping)
CREATE DATABASE EndriasBridgeTarget
  CHARACTER SET utf8mb4
  COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

-- 2. Create migration user and grant access
CREATE USER 'MigrationUser'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'your-password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON EndriasBridgeTarget.* TO 'MigrationUser'@'%';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Open Endrias Bridge and navigate to Step 5 — DB Migration. Fill in both connection blocks as shown below. Leave the Port field blank for SQL Server (uses default instance port).

In Endrias Bridge, switch to the Assessment tab and click Run Assessment. The tool connects to the source only at this stage and catalogs all objects and compatibility considerations.

Switch to the Migration tab. Click Load Tables from Source to populate the table list, then review selections. System-versioned temporal tables will be flagged and should be excluded on the first run.

Click Start Migration. Watch the Migration Log update live as type conversions are applied, schema is created, and rows are copied in batches of 1,000.

1. Click Verify Data Integrity — compares source vs. target row counts for every migrated table and logs any mismatches.
2. Click Export Report (enabled once migration finishes) to save an HTML/text summary of what was created, copied, and any warnings (type changes, truncated strings, rounded decimals, etc.).
3. Spot-check key tables directly on the MySQL target to confirm row counts and data values.

-- Run on MySQL target after migration to spot-check row counts
SELECT TABLE_NAME, TABLE_ROWS
FROM information_schema.TABLES
WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'EndriasBridgeTarget'
ORDER BY TABLE_NAME;

After migration completes, perform the following post-migration validation and cleanup steps on the MySQL target.

1. Verify charset on target tables:

-- Confirm utf8mb4 charset was applied correctly
SHOW CREATE TABLE EndriasBridgeTarget.Users;
-- Expected output includes: DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4

-- Check all tables in the target database
SELECT TABLE_NAME, TABLE_COLLATION
FROM information_schema.TABLES
WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'EndriasBridgeTarget'
ORDER BY TABLE_NAME;

2. Rebuild full-text indexes manually if needed:

-- Full-text indexes are not migrated automatically.
-- Recreate any required FULLTEXT indexes on the target:
ALTER TABLE EndriasBridgeTarget.Products
  ADD FULLTEXT INDEX ft_description (Description);

3. Re-enable FK checks if disabled externally:

-- Endrias Bridge manages FK checks internally during migration.
-- If you manually disabled FK checks in your session, re-enable:
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;

🗺️ Known Issues

Temporal tables (system-versioned): MySQL and MariaDB do not support SQL Server temporal tables. The history table and SysStart/SysEnd columns are not migrated — exclude these tables or migrate the current-row table only and drop the period columns from the target after import.

IDENTITY → AUTO_INCREMENT: Values are seeded from the max existing value + 1 automatically. No manual sequence reset is required.

MONEY → DECIMAL(19,4): There is no MONEY type in MySQL. Values are stored as DECIMAL with 4 decimal places — arithmetic precision is preserved but the type label changes.

XML columns: Stored as LONGTEXT on MySQL — no XQuery or XML schema validation is available on the target. If your application relies on XML querying against these columns, add application-level handling post-migration.

BIT(1) vs TINYINT(1): MySQL uses TINYINT(1) as the boolean equivalent. Endrias Bridge maps SQL Server BIT → TINYINT(1). Values 0 and 1 are preserved exactly.

Case sensitivity: MySQL on Linux is case-sensitive for table names by default (lower_case_table_names=0). If your source SQL Server uses mixed-case table names, set lower_case_table_names=1 on the MySQL target before migration to avoid name resolution issues at the application layer.

📊 Type Conversions Applied (SQL Server → MySQL)