[ale] MS-SQL as slave/backup to MySQL

[Mike Harrison]

On Mon, 23 Aug 2010, Richard Bronosky wrote:

> Wait... what do you really want to do? You say "so that the
> Microsofties can backup the data and do adhoc reports with the tools
> they know." What does "backup the data" mean? If I tell one of my
> employees, "backup the data," I'm asking them to write the data to a
> backup. Even if you take MSSQL out of it... If you want a MySQL slave
> you can write to, you are not going to get it. Now, throw in this
> MSSQL system... impossible squared.


I'm starting to find the magic words are things like "data replication 
gateways" and am starting to find commercial products that would do this.
(Cost is not an issue if under 10k for that part..).

I'm also findning people who say they have used the MySQL ODBC driver and
setup a connection from their MS-SQL system to MySQL, with some caveats.

In reality, there will be a MySQL cluster or at least a master/slave a 
mile or so apart (fiber), and it'll have hourly mysqldump's to some other 
offsite secure location.

I think the IT director and team wants a "security blanket" to know
that for their personal comfort it is on MS-SQL as well. It lets them
do ODBC hooks for SQL queries into spreadsheets and other reporting tools.
As would ODBC drivers for MySQL.

More than once I have done stupid expensive things to make the IT 
director happy.. and a few months later turned that system into something 
useful.

I have a post about it elsewhere that reads:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Walk into the Porche dealer.. Take a test drive of a black Porche 911 with 
all the goodies. Squeeeling the tires a little in a curve, scream: "I like 
it, I'll take it". Pull back into the dealership with a big grin and a 
happy sales-droid. Take a chair in front of the big desk, sip a cup of 
coffee served by a buxom lass, and tell the sales manager that you loved 
the ride in the Porche 911, and you want it delivered tomorrow with a 
couple of minor modifications: You want a Cummings diesel motor in front 
of the dashboard and that it should be Ferrari red. Plop down a large 
deposit in cash and walk out.

In the high dollar corporate IT world... it happened again today. They 
test drove and -liked- the Linux system, have for weeks. And then asked 
for it on Windows Server and MS-SQL. It happens all the time... We would 
laugh at the guy at the Porche dealer, shouldn't we laugh in IT?