3.0 The Archiving Procedure
3.1 Right Retrieval Strategy
An important challenge for SAP
administrators is to find out the appropriate data for archiving. It
is important to have knowledge of the business processes involved in
the enterprise, prior to data archiving, so that appropriate archive
objects are created. This helps in identifying database table growth
and simplifies the process of identifying objects for archiving.
3.2 Three Phase Archiving Process
Data archiving process comprises
three major phases. They are:
- Creating an archive file
- Removing the archived data from the database
- Transferring the archived files to a location
outside the SAP database
Phase I - Creating Archive Files
The archived files of data are
created in the SAP database by the Archiving Management system. The
Management system reads the data from the database and writes it to
the archive files in the background. In instances of archived files
exceeding the maximum specified limit, or if the number of data
objects exceed the stipulated limit in the system, then the system
automatically creates new archive files.
At the end of the process of
saving data into archive files, ADK triggers the system event
SAP_ARCHIVING_WRITE_FINISHED, which is an indicator to the system to
start next phase of archiving process.
Phase II - Deleting files from the
Database
While archiving management system
writes data on the archive files, another program deletes it from
the database permanently. The program checks whether the data has
been transferred to the archive. It is quite important too as it is
the last check performed by the system before deleting data
permanently from the database. Several deletion programs run
simultaneously, because the archiving program is much more faster
than the deletion programs. This is important as it increases the
efficiency of archiving process.
Phase III - Transferring Archive Files
Once the Archive management system
has finished archiving the data, the next step is to save the
archived files at a different location other than the SAP database.
This can be accomplished by an automated process in the system or by
a manual process. This step is optional since many enterprises may
wish to keep the archived files within the current database.
However, large enterprises transfer their data periodically as a
part of their data archiving processes.
