Data conversion

Once the table structures are updated, new indexes are added, stored procedures are changed, and various constraints have been made current, you might have to update the data in the database to reflect these changes. You might be installing a brand new empty database. Once the data files have the new structures in place you might optionally need to move data around to normalize or denormalize records, add default values to new columns , add records to support/lookup tables, correct or update foreign keys, or even completely populate a new database from the system used before the new one was implemented. This conversion is a different and separate step in the process. Obviously this is best handled after the structures are in place.

You might implement this as a post setup executable or process (see Figure 2 for an example), or you may run this even before implementing the new or updated application. If there are several items you need to accomplish after the application files are copied to the appropriate location you need to write a program that handles all the needed steps.

Figure 2. This is an example of a database conversion routine running.