Accessing Archived Data
Use
Data that was archived using SAP Data Archiving has been relocated from the database but not placed beyond the application. Data is still available for read access and analysis. In some cases, archived data can even be reloaded into the database.
Prerequisites
A prerequisite of read access and reload access, is that the file can be found in the file system. You can check this in Archive Administration.
Features
Note
The uses of archived data described here are technically possible, but are not currently implemented in all application components. For more information, refer to the application-specific sections of the documentation on Data Archiving in the SAP Library.
Three types of access are possible:
(Read) access to a single data object, such as an accounting document
Direct access or single document access requires an index that can be built either during archiving or at a later point. A complex search of the documents stored in the archive files, in which all orders of an article in a particular batch are required for a product recall action, is not possible.
The Archive Information System (AS) supports direct access using archive information structures that can be generated automatically either when the archive files are being written, or at a later point.
Analysis of an archive file (sequential read)
It is possible to run an analysis for one or several archiving sessions. The results of the analyzed data objects are displayed in a list. Furthermore, some archiving objects offer the option of a combined analysis. With this option, you can link current data in the database and archived data.
Reloading into the database
Archived data does not usually need to be reloaded because it remains accessible by the applications. There is also a lot of data that cannot be reloaded or for which reloading is problematic. For this reason, reload programs do not exist for all archiving objects.