What are the advantages of dump and load?

What are the advantages of dump and load?
What are the benefits of a dump and load?
How to recapture some space from a database?
Why should I dump and load?
What reasons are there for dumping and loading a database ?
Can I change from Unix to Windows with a dump and load?
Can I change from Windows to Unix with a dump and load?
Can I change my OS with a dump and load?

Some of the reasons to dump and load are:

1. If you are experiencing performance degradation and are finding that the database management appears to be taking up more time than it should, "dump and load" is a routine maintenance procedure that should be undertaken from time to time.

2. To economize disk space. This action tends to cause records for the same table to be clustered together in blocks and for those blocks to be contiguous on disk. Sequential access is improved greatly and on reloading, the least scatter will result by loading the data for the table with the smallest average record size first and the table with the largest average record size last.

3. When creating a new version of a database

4. When migrating a database to a different version of Progress and/or a different operating system platform

5. When Loading updated data definitions to upgrade a database schema

Once this operation has been completed it is advisable to Baseline the "scatter factor" (through TABANALYS). This will assist in future decision making (eg: performance degradation) as to when it's time to dump and load again.

References to Written Documentation:
Progress Solutions:
P25106, Why dump/load is improving performance