Data Archiving - What for

[Former Member]

Hi Everybody,

What is Data Archiving ? What happens to the Data in the Database while Archiving it? How can we do that in Query mode? Does it Shrink the Original Data?Shrinking is nothing but deletion right? if so what will happen to the Original data.

plz give me idea about this.

Points will be awarded

Thanks

Siva

[Former Member]

Siva,

Archiving is merely the act of taking qualifying data (qualifying data is data that is not accessed too much and will not change) and moving from the active database to another data storage environment. This can be done for a number of reasons - performance is one and database size is another.

Some examples of performance would be archving critical completed work-flows. An example of archiving for space is something like billing line-items. Both are required (as an example - each company is differenet in what they need and how long it should be retained) to be kept, and both are not access too much any more.

Speed is enhanced when tables are smaller and responses are not cluttered with completed or otherwise not necessary data (such as IDOC's). Data Storage can give cost benefits by taking data that is rarely used off the expensive productive system disk and putting it on cheaper Archive Storage. The cost different can vary depending on the back-end solution but your can reduce your storage costs by upto 90%.

Archiving is the absolute sense is merely taking the data from the database and putting it in files. Programs that are 'Archive Aware' will extend to the archive seamlessly. Database queries in ABAP will not access the archive.

The ADK - Archive Development Kit, is designed to act as an interface between the operational database and the archive. Function calls allow the ABAP programs to retrieve data from the Archive System.

In the simplest of ways - an SAP Archive System can be a file system on the SAP Servers - non-compressed database tables with ASCII may see some moderate compression with archiving but nothing is really gained if the disk type is the same as the productive system.

More complicated Archive Systems, like IXOS and PBS, use complex hasing algorythyms and complex multi-redundant IDE disk arrays to cheaply but quickly access and retrieve data from the archive using some basic software and RFC technologies.

In a nutshell - this is archiving - hopefully this answered your question - it if has, please set you thread to answered - if not, please provide your additional queries so we can assist you further.

Really good book reference for Archiving - if you are going to be an Archive Administrator or in charge of Archiving, you will need this book.

http://www.sap-press.com/product.cfm?account=&product=H956