Sydney Dentist Centre DB Upgrading - Migration and Testing Plan

This report explains the migration and testing plan for Sydney Dentist Centre's database upgrading from Access to SQL Server. It includes the steps for migration, testing and analysis, and screenshots of the Upsizing Wizard tool. The report concludes that the migration is easy using Microsoft's tools and techniques, but pre-requisite steps must be followed for data safety. The database must be thoroughly tested for any flaws using manual query retrieval or the migration report.

Running head: SYDNEY DENTIST CENTRE DB UPGRADING
Sydney Dentist Centre DB upgrading
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1
SYDNEY DENTIST CENTRE DB UPGRADING
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Migration and Test Plan.............................................................................................................2
Upsizing Wizard.....................................................................................................................2
Before starting with the migration.....................................................................................2
The Steps for migration......................................................................................................3
Testing and Test analysis...................................................................................................3
Screenshots.........................................................................................................................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6

2
SYDNEY DENTIST CENTRE DB UPGRADING
Introduction
The Sydney Dentist Centre is aiming at developing an integrated system that will
have a well-structured database system using SQL Server. Currently, they have their database
on a Microsoft Access platform, which they plan to migrate and test before they fully deploy
the system. This will provide them with all varied information about the centre database. In
this report, the migration plan for existing database will be explained and details about testing
the following system will be discussed. The test plan will include a critical analysis of a
common Microsoft tool that is available for this task.
Migration and Test Plan
Microsoft has quite a handful of tools and strategies that can be used in order to
convert or import a complete MS Access database into MS SQL Server. Below, the Upsizing
Wizard tool will recommended for this purpose and its technical details will be considered to
perform the migration testing.
Upsizing Wizard
Upsizing is a technique within Microsoft that allows the safe migration of data from
an Access database into a SQL Server database. It provides high performance, scalability and
enhanced security features (Aspin 2012).
Before starting with the migration
However, before the process can be started, a few crucial steps must be taken. These
include the advance backup of the Access data that is being migrated. This will avoid the risk
of the data being lost in case of a system failure. Unique indexes must also be created
beforehand for the ease of upsizing. Also, all adequate SQL Server permissions must be
granted.

3
SYDNEY DENTIST CENTRE DB UPGRADING

4
SYDNEY DENTIST CENTRE DB UPGRADING
The Steps for migration
The following steps are to be followed in order to migrate the database and then
generate the migration report that would be helpful for testing purposes.
Step 1: Choose an existing or a new database to which the Access data will be migrated.
Step 2: Choose the tables from the Access database that are to be to be upsized.
Step 3: Mention the attributes which needs to be upsized
Step 4: Choose from amongst all the available ways to upsize the database such as a new
Access Client/Server application can be set up or an existing SQL Server can be linked.
Step 5: Finally, a user ID and password must be set to the database, if one does not already
exist.
Step 6: Analyse database report and perform data testing.
Testing and Test analysis
Once the migration has been completed, it is necessary for the database administrator
to test the database functionalities as efficiently as possible. Firstly, the database structure
that has been generated within the SQL server needs to be checked and tested based on the
original requirements from the Access database. Furthermore, the administrator may wish to
check the database tables having performed some specific queries on them to check if the
data being retrieved is logical enough. Finally, the Upsized documentation report that has
been generated after the migration process should be thoroughly analysed to identify any
errors in the new database system. This report generally contains all information about the
upsizing parameters including the tables, attributes and relations. The Access and SQL Server
syntax comparison is also presented in order to spot any un-wanted changes that might affect

5
SYDNEY DENTIST CENTRE DB UPGRADING
the system (Cox 2015). The migration log is also presented within the report which needs to
be checked for possible errors during the transaction.
Screenshots
Below, the screenshots have been provided to highlight how the database can be
migrated from Access to SQL Server, using the Upsizing Wizard tool provided by Microsoft.
This has been done for an arbitrary database.
Fig 1. Select the SQL server database to connect and migrate to
Fig 2.Select the server in case of a new database

6
SYDNEY DENTIST CENTRE DB UPGRADING
Fig 3. Select the tables and attributes that needs to be migrated from Access to SQL Server
Fig 4.Set Indexes

7
SYDNEY DENTIST CENTRE DB UPGRADING
Fig 5.Connect to the SQL Server and work with the migrated database
Fig 6. Analyse the Upsizing Report
Conclusion
The above report helps to conclude that migrating an Access database to a SQL
Server database is as easy as it can get, using the tools and techniques provided by Microsoft.
However, in order to do that, several pre-requisite steps must be followed to ensure that the
data is safe, in case any crashes occur. In addition to that, the testing plan helps to conclude

8
SYDNEY DENTIST CENTRE DB UPGRADING
that the database, once migrated must be tested for any flaw that might exist after the process.
This can be done using manual query retrieval producers or by analysing the migration report
that is generated by the Upsizing Wizard Tool.

9
SYDNEY DENTIST CENTRE DB UPGRADING
References
Aspin, A., 2012. Sourcing Data from MS Office Applications. In SQL Server 2012 Data
Integration Recipes (pp. 1-59). Apress, Berkeley, CA.
Cox, P., 2015. Access: IMPORTING DATA. Strategic Finance, 96(12), p.60.