Archiving Data in SAP Retail

 

Data archiving can be used to remove mass data from your productive database so that the data can be used for analysis at a later date. Before beginning to archive data, it is a good idea to check if you want to avoid creating data, aggregate data or simply delete data. Archiving is used for data that cannot be avoided and that cannot simply be deleted.

Archiving data at the right time enables you to keep your database to a manageable size, making it faster to save data and thereby improving performance. Data archiving is particularly important for retailers as large amounts of data are generated in a short period of time.

When implementing SAP Retail, we recommend that data archiving is productive immediately after an SAP Retail system goes productive. This means that it is a good idea to schedule archiving for your most important background jobs at regular intervals. The duration of an archiving project is usually six months. It is therefore imperative that you trigger your archiving project as soon as possible after going productive with SAP Retail.

Caution Caution

Ensure that you start your archiving project at the correct time, if possible immediately after your system goes productive. Archiving projects frequently start after a system has gone productive and a high percentage of the database capacity is already filled with data. When this is the case, it is important that the following questions are answered as early as possible:

  • Can some data be avoided completely?

  • Which objects are relevant for archiving?

  • What residence duration is used for master data and documents?

  • How is data to be located and extracted from the archive at a later date?

  • Is the correct data being archived?

    This question is best answered after tests have been carried out with the specialist departments.

End of the caution.

Integration

Data archiving in SAP Retail is handled in the same way as data archiving in the non-Retail environment. It is based on SAP archiving objects and generic SAP tools.

For general information, see the Introduction to archiving. The introduction provides answers to the following questions:

The most important characteristics of data archiving in SAP Retail are detailed briefly below:

  • Due to the fast increase in data volume, it is important that archiving begins as early as possible in your system.

  • Archiving objects from the following components are usually relevant:

    • Logistics objects: LO, MM, SD and LE

    • Cross-application objects: BC and CA

    • Retail objects: LO and MM, names beginning with W

    • Financials (if used): FI and CO

  • Usually, the greatest volume of data is generated for non-Retail objects. Tables with a fast increase in data and high data volume are, for example, MSEG (Document Segment: Material), MARC (Plant Data for Material) and MBEW (Material Valuation), LIPS (SD Document: Delivery: Item data), and COEP (CO Object: Line Items (by Period)).

ILM-related Information for the Archiving Object

The SAP Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) component supports the entire software lifecycle including the storage, retention, blocking, and deletion of data.

SAP Retail provides ILM objects that enhance archiving objects with the information for data retention. For more information, see ILM Objects in SAP Retail.

More Information

For more information, see the Data Archiving documentation in the SAP NetWeaver Library. You can also find this documentation on SAP Help Portal at http://help.sap.com/nwInformation published on SAP site under Start of the navigation path SAP NetWeaver Platform Next navigation step Function-Oriented View Next navigation step Solution Life Cycle Management Next navigation step Data Archiving End of the navigation path.