First of all, welcome to the light, we’ve been waiting for you. Just kidding…(sorta).

The first question you need to answer is what’s been causing you problems? Have you taken a look at Microsoft’s Guide to Migrating from Sybase ASE to SQL Server 2005 whitepaper? The planning phase is critical in ensuring your migration is successful. You should definitely do some due dilligence with regard to equivalent, nonsupported and emulated functions as well as unique datatype conversions, and syntax differences/disagreements to determine what’s going to create problems.

There is certainly no shortage of third-party applications to help you migrate your databases and applications, but this can be the perfect opportunity to gain some deep insight into your environment. Yes, that is a glass-half-full way of looking at it, but it also happens to be true. A third-party application can help, but if something during the migration goes south, you or the vendor’s support are still going to have to investigate your environment to determine what went wrong and why. Wouldn’t you rather know?

Personally, I’m a big fan of testimonials and the type of information you usually find in forums and Google groups. In an article entitled Migrating from Sybase to SQL Server Sayed Geneidy talks about his experience migrating to SQL Server 2000. Look at the sections on data compatibility mode and optimizer hints for some items that frequently cause people headaches during a migration.

Hope that helps!