A quick look at Data Archiving
Before taking a deep dive into how to approach data archiving, let’s overview the definition of the process. Data archiving helps businesses effectively manage their continuously increasing data growth in the SAP system. The process also helps companies ensure an efficient and effective use of their database resources in the IT landscape. With that in mind, archiving also enables long-term data storage and retention, giving users the benefit of accessing required information for audits and other purposes. There are several existing technologies for archiving; however, in the SAP context, the technology used is the Archive Development Kit along with Archive Administration (transaction SARA).
Essential Data Archiving Strategies
The approach to archiving your data requires thorough planning; you must create a strong strategy to ensure a smooth and streamlined process. Here’s a step-by-step guide for you –
Understand and Sort the Data to be Archived
One of the most crucial factors before starting with your data archiving is understanding and sorting what you have to archive. The truth is companies create huge amounts of data on a regular basis; that’s why data accumulation becomes inevitable. However, knowing which data to archive and which one to keep in the main system is essential. How do you do that? First off, identify the residence of the data, meaning how old the data is, if it is required for current work scenarios, how much space it is occupying, and so on. If it’s historical data with no relevant use, put it in the list of data that needs archiving.
Identifying the Archiving Data
Another important archiving strategy is to identify the archiving objects. In fact, archiving objects are the building blocks of data archiving. It represents the structures of the data as well as the associated business objects that can be archived. For those who are unaware, SAP says that an archiving object helps specify the data is archived and how. Archiving objects are precise and describe which database objects must be handled together as a single business object.
There are three archiving objects, namely, an archiving object that can only archive data, an ILM object that can archive and destroy data, and an HR ILM object that can run data destruction. Businesses must identify the pertinent archiving objects as it will help ensure that the archived data maintains the context of its business. Furthermore, having clarity about archiving objects also allows organisations to control the growth of their SAP data, access it, and analyse it when required.
Define Data Retention Periods and Policies
Yet another crucial point in database storage optimisation in SAP is data retention periods. It helps define the time length for which data must be stored in a secured location before it can be archived or deleted. It is quintessential for organisations to establish retention periods as per the legal, regulatory, and business requirements. Moreover, having data retention policies in place helps balance accessibility and storage costs.
Bear in mind that for a seamless data archiving process, defining rules for blocking and deletion after the defined retention periods is necessary. Data retention periods are determined by the purpose of retaining the said data, which can vary from order management to application management, invoice management, and so on.
Choosing among the Archiving Processes
One of the most critical factors to consider before starting the data archiving process is to select the method of archiving. There are three types of archiving methods, namely comprehensive or full archiving, selective archiving, and catch-up archiving.
- Comprehensive archiving or full archiving: This is the standard archiving process where you systematically store data into a separate storage location with long-term retention periods.
- Selective archiving: This approach is used to archive only specific subsets of data based on pre-defined criteria, rather than archiving the full set of data.
- Catch-up archiving: In this archiving process, overlooked data or the ones that were not archived on time are taken into account. Catch-up archiving helps resolve the gaps in archival coverage. Moreover, it ensures that historical records are compliant with regulatory as well as organisational needs. Archiving gaps can occur due to technical errors, oversights, or policy issues.
Consider the type of Archiving
Often, people have misconceptions about data and document archiving, thinking that they are the same thing. However, they are not. That’s why considering the type of archiving also plays a key role in developing an effective data archiving strategy. While data archiving is a preferred choice for structured data where data is shifted from the live system to a secondary storage location. Document archiving is for unstructured data such as sales invoices, PDFs, word files, and so on. This process happens in real-time, and, more importantly, can be stored in any content server. That said, you also have fiscal archiving, where you regularly freeze your data for a specified time.
Wrap up
In this article, you’ve learned how an effective data archiving strategy is an excellent approach to controlling data growth in the SAP system. However, it can be tedious, and challenges are bound to occur along the way. The best option here is to join hands with an expert who can bring out significant results. The right partner can help assess the data volume of the organisation to archive and manage them, resulting in effective storage optimisation within the SAP system. Furthermore, after the successful delivery of the archiving project, an expert can provide additional ongoing support services with a dedicated team. It helps monitor and address any issues or queries established by the project team in the archiving process.
