Excellent point! And they don't actually have to be "small" except in relation to the allowed outage window to make perceived downtime zero. Thanks Yong Huang, mwf -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Yong Huang Sent: Sunday, December 13, 2009 10:29 AM To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Cross-Platform migration (10g) > I need to move a database from Windows to HP-UX. What are my options > besides exp/imp (datapump)? About data migration in general. There's one rarely mentioned benefit of export and import (traditional or data pump). If your database hosts many small applications one or a few schemas for each app, you may lower overall down time by using export and import one app at a time. The benefit is that the app team can tell you the best time for migration. Unless they're truly 24x7, they may not consider your down time as their down time at all. Yong Huang -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l