2.2 The Archive Development Kit (ADK)
SAP provides the Archive
Development Kit (ADK) for realization of secure and efficient
archiving procedures, to support and simplify the development of
archiving programs. ADK provides a development environment where
programming code is written to call archiving objects. When the
program is executed, the corresponding archiving files are created.
Figure 1 illustrates this
relationship.
Figure1: Archive Development Kit
Image Source: SAP® white paper: Data Archiving
and Archive Development Kit
ADK creates the archiving files
from archive objects. It acts as an interface layer between
archiving objects and the archived files. To reduce the space
consumed by the archived files, ADK compresses the data 5 times the
normal data. Only data in clustered tables is left from being
archived and stored, as it is, in the database.
ADK is central to creating,
opening, writing, reading and closing archive files, plus all
administrative issues, from scheduling jobs to communicating with
external storage systems.
Another major function of ADK is
to retrieve archived files. Archived files normally have an outdated
database structure. ADK checks for the file format and encounters
all potential problems, which may evolve due to such files. The
major functions of ADK are shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Archive Development Kit Functions
The ADK is designed to use in
client/server architecture. and provides an appropriate way of using
system resources efficiently.
2.3 ArchiveLink®
- The Optical Archiving Method
ArchiveLink®
is a SAP product that enables data archiving for business documents
in an optical storage system. Through ArchiveLink®
, one can store scanned original documents, outgoing documents, or
print lists in optical systems. It is not possible to analyse them
with R/3 tools or load them into R/3, without the help of third
party software. Archive files created by R/3 data archiving, can be
removed, analysed and reloaded through ArchiveLink
®. The
Complimentary Software Providers (CSP) [or Third Party Software
Providers] can also provide these solutions, which are integrated
with the SAP system to archive data from the database. Their
capabilities include:
- Scanning Documents
- Conversion of documents to electronic form
- Storing images on optical media
- Data searching and retrieving functionalities
