Hi list I have an IBM AIX 5.1 (PowerPC Power4 RISC processor) server running Oracle 8.1.7 and I want to have a test restore/recovery server for testing the validity of all my backups and a development database. My problem is we can't afford another server (AIX) and thus I'm considering buying an x86 (Intel or AMD Linux server { much much affordable you will agree} ) and then port all the datafiles to that machine. My question is will these datafiles be portable/compatible on a Redhat/Suse linux server? or I'll have to convert the datafiles to a certain format to make them compatible to the linux box? Does this really work? Can I have a test database running on a completely different platform (processor) as the production database? Thank you for all the help. Best Regards. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.742 / Virus Database: 495 - Release Date: 2004-08-19 -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l