Routing of Archive Files to Different Directories

Purpose

This process describes how you set up rules and conditions for automatically routing archive files to specific directories in the file system, and how the archive files are then stored.

If you are not using a storage system connected through ArchiveLink or if you want to keep your data in the file system at first, you can use Archive Routing to specify into which directory the archive files are to be automatically written during archiving. You do this by entering logical file names. If you subequently want to move the archive files to a content repository, you can additionally specify this information in Archive Routing later. This information would then be taken into account during the store phase.

Prerequisites

You have defined the logical file paths in Basis Customizing (Transaction FILE), so that they can be used in Archive Routing, and have assigned them to the appropriate logical file names. See Defining Logical Path and File Names .

Process Flow

Setting up the rules and conditions for Archive Routing

The rules and conditions are set up in Archiving-Object-Specific Customizing available in Archive Administration (transaction SARA ), under Archive Routing .
1. Archiving Object
  
  First you must enter for which archiving objects the content repository is to be determined using Archive Routing.
2. Rules
  
  Here you select an archiving object and for this object enter one or more rules, each with its corresponding logical file name.
3. Conditions
  
  Here you select one of the rules and enter one or more conditions, based on which the system can determine the corresponding content repository for this rule. You enter a selection value, such as Carrier ID or Booking Date and the corresponding value or interval. (Note: for selection values such as Carrier ID, you can only enter single values, no intervals. The single value, such as LH, is entered in the From field). The input help (F4) can assist you in choosing a selection value.
The routing of the archive files

During an archiving session the system checks the rules and conditions you created in archiving-object-specific Customizing.

As described under Archive Routing , it is important to point out that the system uses the selection values entered in the variant of the write program, to determine into which directory the archive files of an archiving session should be routed. Therefore, you must ensure that the data covered by the selection values of the variant falls within the data set determined by the rules. If this is not the case, the archiving session is terminated during the first check, meaning even before data is even written.

The actual routing of the archive files into directories takes place during the write phase in production mode, if all conditions have been fulfilled and an appropriate directory could be determined based on the logical file name you specified.

Only one directory can be targeted during an archiving session. This means that if you want to use more than one directory for one archiving object, you must start a different session for each directory.

Result

The archive files have been routed to the appropriate directory, based on the rules and conditions you set up in Archive Routing.

Example

Before archiving using SD_VBAK you have created the following routing rules:

Sales Org.	Creation Date	Logical File Name
0001		Z_MY_LOG_FILE1
0002	1.1.1999 to 12.31.1999	Z_MY_LOG_FILE2
0002	1.1.2000 to 12.31.2000	Z_MY_LOG_FILE3
0002	1.1.2001 to 12.31.2001	Z_MY_LOG_FILE4

In words, these rules can be expressed as follows:

Documents of sales organization 0001 are written to archive files in the directory that belongs to the logical file name Z_MY_LOG_FILE1.
Documents of sales organization 0002 that were created during 1999, are written to archive files in the directory that belongs to the logical file name Z_MY_LOG_FILE2.
Documents of sales organization 0002 that were created during 2000, are written to archive files in directory that belongs to the logical file name Z_MY_LOG_FILE3.
Documents of sales organization 0002 that were created during 2001, are written to archive files in the directory that belongs to the logical file name Z_MY_LOG_FILE4.

The archive files are not stored, because content repositories were not specified in the rules and conditions. They remain in the file system and have been created in the directories that correspond to the specified logical file names. After you have created archive files for both sales organizations, you decide that you want to store the archived data. You now enter the following additional information in the rules and conditions:

Sales Org.	Creation Date	Content Repository	Logical File Name
0001		A1	Z_MY_LOG_FILE1
0002	1.1.1999 to 12.31.1999	A2_1999	Z_MY_LOG_FILE2
0002	1.1.2000 to 12.31.2000	A2_2000	Z_MY_LOG_FILE3
0002	1.1.2001 to 12.31.2001	A2_2001	Z_MY_LOG_FILE4

Since the files were already created and routed to the appropriate directories according to the rules and conditions you defined earlier, they can now easily be stored in content repositories.

The examples show that it is entirely possible and makes sense to change the routing rules if the archive files have not been stored yet. This is particularly the case, when storage systems are introduced later, after archiving.