Database migration across platforms of different "endian" (byte ordering) formats using the Cross Platform Transportable Tablespaces (XTTS) process is now certified for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i (11.5.10.2) with Oracle Database 10g Release 2.  This process is sometimes also referred to as transportable tablespaces (TTS).

What is the Cross-Platform Transportable Tablespace Feature?

The Cross-Platform Transportable Tablespace feature allows users to move a user tablespace across Oracle databases. It's an efficient way to move bulk data between databases. If the source platform and the target platform are of different endianness, then an additional conversion step must be done on either the source or target platform to convert the tablespace being transported to the target format. If they are of the same endianness, then no conversion is necessary and tablespaces can be transported as if they were on the same platform.

Moving data using transportable tablespaces can be much faster than performing either an export/import or unload/load of the same data. This is because transporting a tablespace only requires the copying of datafiles from source to the destination and then integrating the tablespace structural information. You can also use transportable tablespaces to move both table and index data, thereby avoiding the index rebuilds you would have to perform when importing or loading table data.