DBF vs SQL limitations, SQL migration and rewriting my whole site?...

[Ted Giles]

Bit pricy, but it may work OK.
In TOAD, free version, you can import from Excel - (export from Alpha to Excel for example) and create the tables you want.
Does what Data Pump does, but you may need to concentrate and understand the nuances of SQL in a production situation.

[madtowng]

Unless you anticipate a complex schema structure, there is no need to pay to have this done.
I would suggest using Alpha to export your data to a .txt or .csv file.
This ensures your data gets exported as expected (think large numbers or numbers with leading zeroes).

Ask for help.
The help from here is usually affordable, and the best way to learn how to do it.
If you don't want to learn how to do it, I'm sure the cost will be minimal.

Yes, I absolutely advise using, and use TOAD myself. I've been known to leave on the computers I install
it on to help setup a mysql database.

DO NOT hold back information you think is irrelevant if you are having trouble.
You'd be surprised how often that missing data is the real cause of the problem.

[kkfin]

I have a ton of xbasic pages written to handle lots of calculations for estimating insurance premiums, APR calculations, creating payment plans etc...

I think this is the reason for slow performance. I honestly think DBF can handle 20 users without problems. On the other hand DBF is managed in Alpha with xbasic and this is the bottleneck together with lots of ongoing calculations. Maybe you could handle better your traffic using just more Application Server instances.

Because you have lot of calculations there is lot of waiting in your server. Maybe you could consider using for example this concept discussed in this thread . You can for example forward you server calculation load to an other instance using the concept and bring the result to your main Application Server easily. This will boost your server performance to an other level.

[Pat Bremkamp]

Clive has a lot of experience with Alpha and all kinds of databases, so you can trust his judgement. Since you are maintaining one application and building another and running two companies, I suggest you keep it simple. You don't have time and don't have the need to learn much more than the basics. What helped me most was seeing examples, and Alpha has some sample databases you can look at. You (or Clive) can install MySQL or MariaDB and Heidi or Toad in about an hour. Build a couple tables, create a connection string and you can start experimenting. First things to learn are data types (google it), then create and change (called "alter") a table, how to read and write to those tables and how to build indexes. All those Xbasic calculation pages you have created can still be used...just a different set of tables, different ways of accessing and writing the data.

[Mike Reed]

I use MariaDB, it is fast, reliable, works well and is free. I have a couple of tables with millions of records and have no issues with speed.

One thing to consider before you start the conversion. Be sure you have a numeric field that will convert to an integer field in MySQL or MariaDB that has a unique number in it. That can then be your primary key field. DBF tables can do auto increment on both numeric and characters fields. MariaDB and MySQL will only do auto increment on a numeric integer field. I don't know about SQL database engines and auto increment. You can, of course, write a routine to overcome that, but I prefer to have the database engine process do the auto increment.

Before I did the DBF to SQL conversion, I added a numeric field at the end of each table that needed it. Then did the update operation to add a serial number to the newly added field. Then when the table was imported, it became the primary index key. Granted that may require some redesigning when linking tables, but in the end, it's good a good thing.

Good luck!

[madtowng]

FYI...All dbf tables have a numeric ID field commonly known as recno().
It does exactly what an auto_increment column is meant to do, and can be easily exported.