IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Migrating and upgrading your IBM BPM environment > Migrating from previous versions > Migrating from IBM BPM Standard V7.5.x, Teamworks 7, or WebSphere Lombardi Edition > Migrating to IBM BPM V8.0.1 > Export and importing process assets
Before you begin
This type of migration is not recommended for the reasons described in this topic.
In the majority of cases, upgrading your databases in all environments ensures that you retain all the features and flexibility that IBM BPM offers.
If you decide instead to export and then import process assets, your assets are affected as follows:
- By default, imported toolkits are immutable.
- Snapshot histories for process applications and toolkits are lost.
Because imported toolkits are immutable by default, users cannot change the items within them unless a user who has administrative access to the toolkit changes its immutable quality.
When you export process applications and toolkits, you select a snapshot for the export procedure. In most cases, you select the most recent snapshot and perhaps one or more additional snapshots that represent important milestones. Because you export particular snapshots, you lose the history provided by any additional snapshots that you may have stored in the Process Center repository.
With a database upgrade, your toolkits remain mutable and you retain the entire snapshot history for all process applications and toolkits. For these reasons, a database upgrade as outlined in Upgrading existing databases is appropriate in most situations.
