Question about Completing ILM of an object without using SAP ILM

[Former Member]

I am writing this note to see if I can obtain information on how to close the information life cycle loop I have designed for a specific subset of archiving object (IDOC). The scenario is as follows: 1) We want to purge the SAP db of all iDocs with a specific value for either the sender or receiver number within the idoc header record (the SAP ADK for IDOCS supports this). 2) We want to retain the idocs we select and purge in a remote repository. We are configuring this repository in OAC0 and we refer to the same repository in SARA. 3) The remote repository is a WINTEL server with SAP Content Server installed in it. We elected to use simple file system storage rather than MaxDB. We know how to archive the given target idocs and also how to delete them. We can also configure the AFB to browse the deleted idocs is desired. But what is not clear to me is how to remove any reference to the archived object once it's information life cycle is at an end. I am aware of how to use the BC_ARCHIVE object to handle the SAP side, but I can find nothing to help me link up the removal of the archive data in SAP (such as stored in ADMI_FILE) with the raw data stored on the WINTEL side. I was able to manually identify the data on the WINTEL side using the GUID generated for access via Content Server, but this seems extraordinary clumsy and clearly untenable for large blocks of data. I have the SAP Data Archiving book plus several links to information about data archiving. But the topic of completing an information life cycle does not seem to be addressed at all. I have seen allusions to function module within the context of custom ABAP code. Is this the ONLY way to complete an object's information life cycle (or by contracting for third party tools like PBS or Opentext)? I would like to avoid custom tools and work with the standard ADK if at all possible. I have not explored ILM in EHP5 as this would set me back significantly in designing a solution for idoc data retention management. We currently run SAP ECC 6.0 EHP5. NW version is 702.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

It is still not clear to me , why you want to remove the references of Archiving from SAP including ADMI_FILES (The only links available for Archive data stored), if you remove the data from these ADMI_FILE then you will not able to access the Archive data permanently. If your requirement is to only remove IDOCS from SAP system but not to archive and store it then you could have used t code WE11 or report RSETESTD which only deletes the IDOC's and you will be not having any references including IDOC itself.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

This is about the END of storing data. The scenario is I can legally delete the data rather than archive it which is a very valid last step to take when managing the life of data . So, yes, I want all trace of the data eliminated in SAP and on the remote Content Server. This seems to be a last step in managing data that I have seen very little discussion on.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Jon,

The information you are looking for is posted in the content of the Information Lifecycle Management page.  You can find the document Final Deletion of SAP Business Data here.  I also wrote a blog on this and you find it here.  As for the process to delete the data on your storage device, you will need to get that from the vendor.

Hope this helps.

Best Regards,

Karin Tillotson

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

It does and I thank you. It is also a bit discouraging as my vendor for the Content Server is Microsoft (as in that's the OS it's running on).

Perhaps the only way to do this effectively is to use a VERY specific repository ID on the WINTEL server side and only add new content AFTER the full life cycle is complete. I can get away with this because we will operate on a two month cycle. The idea was we wanted to use ADK to cover us on deleting iDocs and I know that the ADK has good recovery procedures plus I have AFB to help look at the data we remove. We would give it 60 days and then do final disposal.

So maybe this is workable. I have to digest the documents but I scanned them and they look comprehensive.

Best regards and thanks much. I will look for your response perhaps and then close this thread down.