Data Archiving, Data Retention, and Data Destruction
SAP supports your data management by providing suitable SAP NetWeaver Information Lifecycle Management
(ILM) functions in the Human Resources applications.
Data Archiving
Efficient data management involves you archiving data from completed business transactions. You can use ILM data archiving to write data that is no longer required in the system, but is to be retained as evidence, for example, to an archive file. To reduce the load on the database, the archive file is stored in a file system or content repository and the data is deleted from the database. For more information, see SAP Library for SAP NetWeaver and choose 
Information Lifecycle Management
Introduction to Data Archiving (CA-ARC)
.
Data Retention
With ILM's Retention Management
, SAP provides you with suitable tools for meeting the statutory requirements for the retention of data. With regard to the destruction of data, this includes the following functions in particular:
Creating and managing data retention policies and rules
In these rules you can represent the valid statutory or company retention periods, and in doing so ensure that data is not destroyed before its retention period has been exceeded.
Creating destruction locks for data
In Human Resources, you can use destruction locks to protect data that needs to be retained for longer than the retention period with regard to legal cases or for revision reasons from being destroyed.
For more information, see SAP Library for SAP NetWeaver and choose Information Lifecycle Management
Retention Management
.
Destruction of Data
Personal data is subject to country-specific data privacy legal regulations. If such data is completed from a business process perspective, the statutory and company retention period has been exceeded, and there is no destruction lock, you need to destroy this data from the operational system and from the archive system.
In the Human Resources applications, SAP provides archiving objects, which support the ILM function for the destruction of data. You can use these archiving objects to destroy data as soon as the end of the retention period has been reached. For more information about the process of destroying data, see Data Destruction in HR.