Optimization of Data Retention

If you are wondering about the performance of your BW system then you should start thinking about the constantly growing volume of data. The more data in your system, the greater the impact on performance in different areas. Therefore we recommend that you regularly archive or delete certain data. Different areas can be taken into consideration when optimizing the data volume:

• Data archiving or near-line storage:

  You should define a data-aging concept for business data early on. Usually you will want to have business data available rather than delete it.

  More information: Information Lifecycle Management

• Housekeeping for business data:

  • Persistent Staging Area (PSA):

    You can delete requests from the PSA that are no longer needed.

    In your strategy for data retention in the PSA, specify a retention time for the data in the PSA tables. This depends on the type of data and the loading strategy. Specify a method, in your strategy, for regularly deleting PSA data.

    More information: Deleting Requests from the PSA

  • DataStore object:

    You can delete data that is no longer needed from the change log of the DataStore object. The change log behaves like a PSA table. Data can be deleted in the same way as in a PSA table. This is recommended if you want to restrict the data history.

    More information: Deleting from the Change Log

    You can delete that is no longer needed from the table of active data. You can use selective deletion to delete records from the DataStore object that have keys for which no more data will be loaded.

    More information: Deleting Data Selectively

  • Master data:

    You cannot delete master data and texts directly from the master data table anymore.

    More information: Deleting Master Data and Texts for a Characteristic

  • Aggregates:

    You cannot deactivate or delete unused aggregates anymore.

    More information: Further Editing Functions for Aggregates

  • DTP temporary storage:

    If you fill the temporary storage of the data transfer process (DTP), the temporary storage is used at runtime to to allow processes to be restarted without a significant impact on performance and consistency when errors occur. You can delete the DTP temporary storage in the DTP maintenance using  Goto  Settings for DTP Temporary Storage  after the request has been updated successfully to the target, when the request is deleted, or after a specific interval has passed since the request was processed.

• Housekeeping for administration data

  SAP Note 706478 provides an overview of administration tables that can significantly increase in size and thereby adversely affect system performance, if they are not regularly deleted or archived. This following tables in particular are relevant here:

  • Tables for request administration data (RS*DONE and RSMON*):

    You can store the administration and log information for a request in an archive. The function allows you to restrict the size of the tables RS*DONE and RSMON* and to improve performance for request actions.

    More information: Archiving Request Administration Data

  • Application log tables (BAL*):

    More information: Delete logs

  • IDoc tables (EDI*):

    IDocs are created on the database in several tables. You can archive the entries and store the archives.

    More information: Archiving IDocs

  • Job tables (TBTCO, TBTCP and more):

    You can delete jobs that you no longer need.

    More information: Delete jobs

• Housekeeping for BW statistical data

  We recommend that you regularly the delete entries from the statistics tables RSDDSTAT* and UPC_STATISTIC*. When using technical content, the deletion process is partially automated.

  For more information, see “BW statistics” in the documentation for SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse.

• Housekeeping for analysis authorizations

  We recommend archiving the change log of analysis authorizations before making a system copy, as this involves a large amount of data that is not actually needed in the new system.

  More information: Archiving Change Records of Analysis Authorizations