Process Data Archiving

Definition

You can archive process and task instances with relevant data, such as process context, tasks, attachments, and business log. An archiving unit is the main process with its sub processes, tasks, and the related context data. The process data is archived through the XML Data Archiving Service (XML DAS) and serialized and stored in XML format. For more information, see Administration of the XML Data Archiving Service.

You define and schedule the archiving process that consists of a write and a delete job with the Java Archiving Cockpit, an application that is integrated into SAP NetWeaver Administrator. For more information, see Java Archiving Cockpit

Recommendation

We recommend that you archive entries of the business log that are older than two months. This archiving session is to be executed on a daily basis at a specified time.

The regular archiving job happens sequentially. You can also run archiving sessions in parallel. This reduces the archiving load by distributing it within different nodes in the cluster and increases the archiving performance.

Prerequisites

You have the following roles assigned to you:

Role	Description
NWA_SUPERADMIN	SAP NetWeaver Administrator, Super Admin
XMLDASSecurityRole
SAP_ARCH_SUPERADMIN

You have the rights to call the XML DAS Administration from within SAP NetWeaver NWA. For more information, see the documentation on User 2 and 3 under

Archive store for BPM process data is defined.

To be able to archive processes, you need to configure your Java system environment first. Follow the description and define an archive store with the name bpm_proc. If you need to synchronize the home path, enter /<SYSID>/bpm_proc/ in the Home Path field where <SYSID> is the ID of the system, for example, /P23/bpm_proc/ and choose the bpm_proc archiving set.

More information: Configure and Activate XML Data Archiving Service

Starting an Archiving Session

Log on to the SAP NetWeaver Administrator application.
You can start an archiving session for BPM process data from the Manage Processes application (see Monitoring and Managing the Processes):
1. To open the Manage Processes application, choose Operations Processes and Tasks Manage Processes .
2. Choose Archive....
  
  The Java Archive Cockpit opens.
You can also directly open the Java Archiving Cockpit in the SAP NetWeaver Administrator by choosing Operations Management Data and Databases Java Archiving Cockpit
On the Write tab, choose the bpm_proc archiving set.

Enter the appropriate selection criteria for the BPM process data that you want to archive.

Note

If you do not enter any selection criteria, all archivable data for the bpm_proc archiving set are archived.

The following table lists the BPM process specific selection criteria only:

Selection Criteria	Description
Completion Period (days)	Select only the process instances that have stayed in completed or cancelled state for more than the specified number of days .
Archive Only in Error Status	Select the Archive Only in Error Status checkbox to archive only process instances that are in error status.
Process ID List	You can enter multiple process instance IDs for a single archiving session. You can separate the IDs with any of the following punctuation: ; (semicolon) , (comma) (space character)
Archive Only System Log	Select the Archive Only System Log checkbox to archive the business log entries that are not related to processes and tasks. All other process related settings will then be ignored.
Skip Instance On Error	Set the Skip Instance On Error checkbox to enable the archiving of the processes (process instances and the associated data) to continue by skipping erroneous process instances. As a result all successfully written objects are also deleted and the archiving process for this process data is completed. The erroneous process instances with the associated data remain in the database (the main persistency). Recommendation Use this option if a few corrupted process instances prevent the archiving of a large number of process instances and associated data.
Process Definition ID	You can enter multiple process definition IDs for a single archiving session. You can separate the IDs using a comma (,).
Completed	Select the Completed checkbox to archive all process instances in completed state.
Cancelled	Select the Cancelled checkbox to archive all process instances in cancelled state.
Completed From	Select a date to archive all process instances that are in completed state from the specified date.
Completed To	Select a date to archive all process instances that have been completed before the specified date.

Schedule the archiving process and specify if the process data that has been archived successfully is to be deleted automatically.
Enter the technical settings.
Choose Start Write Session.

To schedule a delete job separately, choose the Delete tab in the Java Archiving Cockpit. There are no BPM-specific parameters.

To schedule the deletion of archived instances by creating a collection, choose the Hierarchy tab in the JAVA Archiving Cockpit.

More information: Java Archiving Cockpit

Note For more information on guidelines for creating archived collections, see the SCN article SAP Process Orchestration: Process Archiving given in the related links section below.

Scheduling Archiving

You can schedule a job and have regular archiving sessions.

Log on to the SAP NetWeaver Administrator application and navigate to Operation Management Jobs Java Scheduler
On the Tasks tab page, choose Add and select the bpm_proc_write job. Choose Next.
Set the task details such as name and description and choose Next.

Set the task parameters. For more information about some of the parameters and their descriptions, refer to the table in section Starting an Archiving Session above. In addition, you need to specify the following parameters:

Parameter	Description
xmlparse	Depending on whether you want to parse or validate the resources that are written during the write phase, enter Parse or Validate.
wduser	User who has the necessary authorizations to do archiving.
collection	Extension to the home path under which the current archiving session will be persisting the content.
simulation	Determine whether the write session run is merely simulated, or if the data is actually archived.
useindexprops	Exists for backward compatibility and its value is ignored.
sessioncomment	Comment about the archiving session.
auto_deletephase	Select the auto_deletephase checkbox if you want the process instance to be deleted from the database.

Choose Next.

Set the start and end time and the interval at which the archiving should be executed. Choose Finish.

Starting the Parallel Archiving Session

Log on to the SAP NetWeaver Administrator application.
Choose Configuration Infrastructure Java System Properties .
On the Applications tab, choose the tc~bpem~arch~ear application.

Choose the following parameters in the Properties tab of the Extended Details section.

Parameters	Description
archiving.enableParallelArchiving	It allows you to enable and disable parallel archiving. The default value is True. Note Parallel archiving takes place if the value is True. Set the value to False to enable normal archiving.
archiving.maxNumberOfJobs	It displays the maximum number of jobs that can run in parallel in a single series. The default value is 10 and the maximum value is 20. Note The number of jobs should be less or equal to the number of available nodes.
archiving.maxNumberOfProcessesPerJob	It displays the maximum number of processes that can be archived in parallel on a single job. The default value is 1000 and the maximum value is 5000.
archiving.maxNumberOfSeries	It displays the maximum number of series that can run in a parallel archiving session. The series is a set of parallel running jobs. The default value is 2 and there is no limit defined for the maximum number of series.

To change the default value of parameter, select the parameter row, and choose Modify.
Enter a new value in the field, and choose Set.
Choose Save to set the new value for the selected parameter.