Firebird to PostgreSQL Database Migration

Firebird is known as open source RDBMS forked from Borland’s InterBase in 2000. It is cross-platform and supports a lot of programming languages. However, this system is not scalable enough and so it may not satisfy increased performance requirements of growing companies. 

When thinking about Firebird database migration, organizations often seek more advanced database management systems that provide features such as integrated replication and full-text search. PostgreSQL, an object-relational database management system, is a popular choice due to its comprehensive multi-level security system, indexing approaches, and support for subselects, transactions, and user-defined types. 

However, manual migration can be complicated and tedious, risking data loss or corruption due to human error. Main bottlenecks of Firebird to PostgreSQL database migration are listed below: 

• some Firebird types do not have direct equivalent in PostgreSQL, for example “blob sub_type 1”
• semantic of escaped strings inside SQL statements in PostgreSQL differs from Firebird 
• Firebird auto-increment columns must be migrated into PostgreSQL serial types
• and many others

There are multiple approaches to automate and simplify the migration process, for example using free tool FBexport. It can export Firebird database into comma separate values (CSV) or SQL INSERT-statements. This option requires some manual efforts to create the target database and all table structures. Also, INSERT-statements must be transformed according to PostgreSQL syntax. 

There are some commercial tools such as the Firebird to PostgreSQL converter developed by Intelligent Converters that can automate database migration within just a few clicks. It migrates table definitions, data, indexes and constraints. Besides, the converter offers advanced features such as support for all versions of Firebird and PostgreSQL (including cloud variations of DBMS), the ability to change column attributes or exclude them from conversion, full Unicode support and the option to merge or sync Firebird data into an existing PostgreSQL database.

The converter provides option to export Firebird database into PostgreSQL script that includes CREATE and INSERT statements to create tables and fill them with the data for the target database management system. This approach may be used when direct connection to PostgreSQL server is not possible.

Finally, Firebird to PostgreSQL converter offers command line support to script and schedule the database migration process. Just like any other software product of Intelligent Converters, this tool comes with free demo version with limited capabilities that allows to test main features before purchasing the full version. Every license is the Firebird to PostgreSQL converter is supplied with unlimited support and one0year subscription for updates. Visit the official site of Intelligent Converters to learn more about Firebird to PostgreSQL converter.