Best Practices: Exporting and Importing Assets
When you export an instance of an asset from a lower version of CentraSite (say, source registry), CentraSite exports the asset and a number of referenced and associated objects to an archive file on the file system. The export set also includes the asset's type definition, if the type is a custom type or a modified predefined type.
When you import the same instance of asset to a higher version of CentraSite (say, target registry), CentraSite creates the imported asset, its referenced and associated objects, and the asset's type definition in the target registry.
If the imported asset's type definition is a custom type, the import operation between versions of CentraSite is successful and the appropriate entries are created in the target registry.
However, if the imported asset's type definition is a predefined asset type, the import operation between different versions of CentraSite results in various compatibility problems. Predefined asset types, for example, Service type definition which are updated during fix releases in a lower version of CentraSite might not be compatible with the same Service type definition available in a higher version of CentraSite. During import of such predefined asset types, CentraSite exhibits one of the following compatibility issues:
Scenario A: If the asset's type definition includes minor changes on each of the two
CentraSite versions, the import operation is partially successful.
CentraSite filters the predefined asset type and writes the following message to the Import log:
INMIEE0072: Cannot update asset type because of version mismatch ("…")
Scenario B: If the asset's type definition includes major changes on each of the two
CentraSite versions, the import operation fails. For example, if the source registry contains an attribute that is not available in the target registry,
CentraSite fails the import operation and writes the following error message to the Import log:
INMIEE0055: Asset to be imported does not fit to Asset type definition
with attribute mismatch
To work around the scenario B, export the asset with the help of a temporary database. Perform an upgrade using the temporary database by following these steps:
1. Create a temporary database for the source registry. That is, do a backup of the lower version of CentraSite.
2. Upgrade the temporary database to the required target registry which is the higher version of CentraSite, by executing the CentraSite command tool MoveCentraSiteRR.[cmd|sh].
3. Export asset from the upgraded temporary database to an archive file.
4. Import the archive file into the database of the target registry with the replace option.
Now, the predefined asset types in archive file and the database of the target registry are compatible and can be modified to suit the requirements.
