TABLE OF CONTENTS Microsoft Access or the MySQL database? Reasons to Migrate from Mi- crosoft Access to the MySQL database Migration Strategies Methods of Transferring Da- tabases from Access to MySQL Telling Microsoft Access to Export its own Tables Converters that Generate Intermediate Files Converters that Perform Di- rect Data Transfer. Microsoft Access or the MySQL database? Microsoft Access is a popular data management application that allows you to store information in tables that it manages directly from the local disk. You can also use Access as a front end, that is, as an interface to information that is located elsewhere and handled by another storage management system. In this case, Access acts as a client that connects to a server that pro- vides the data. The MySQL database system is one such storage manager; if you install the MyODBC driver, Access can make ODBC connections to MySQL database servers over the network. You can still use the contents of your tables through Access, but the tables themselves are hosted by the MySQL server.