SAP Data Archiving

Introduction to Enterprise Data Archiving

Currently, a large number of enterprises use SAP R/3 as a platform for integration of business processes. The continuous usage of SAP results in huge amounts of enterprise data, which is stored in SAP R/3. With passage of time, the new and updated data is entered into the system while the old data still resides in the SAP enterprise system.

Since some of the old data is critical, it cannot be deleted. The difficulty is keeping the data you want, and deleting the data you do not want. Hence, a SAP database keeps on expanding rapidly and enterprise systems, which have limited data retention abilities for a few years, suffer from problems such as data overflow, longer transaction processing times, and performance degradation.

The solution of this problem has led to the concept of Data Archiving in SAP. Data Archiving removes out-of-date data from the SAP database that the R/3 system does not need online, but can be retrieved on a later date, if required. This data is known as archived data and is stored at an offline location. Data Archiving not only consistently removes data from the database but also ensures data availability for future business requirements.

One rule of thumb is that in a typical SAP enterprise system, the ratio of data required to be online and instantly accessible to old data, which could be archived, and stored offline is 1:6. For example, if an enterprise has 2100 GB of SAP database, the online data, which is frequently used by SAP users will be 300 MB and the rest (1800 MB) will be scarcely used and hence can be archived.

Data Archiving – Features

• It provides a protection layer to the SAP database and resolves underperformance problems caused by huge volumes of data. It is important that SAP users should keep only minimal data to efficiently work with database and servers. Data archiving ensures that the SAP database contains only relevant and up-to-date data that meet your requirements.

• Data archiving uses hardware components such as hard disks and memory. For efficient data archiving, minimum number of disks and disk space should be used.

• It also reduces the system maintenance costs associated with the SAP database. In the SAP database there are various procedures such as, data backup, data recovery, and data upgrade.

• SAP data archiving complies with statutory data retention rules that are common and well-proven techniques.

SAP data archiving can be implemented in two ways. In the next section both options will be discussed in detail.