Data Archiving with Archive Development Kit (ADK)

Context

Data Archiving removes mass data, which the system no longer needs, from the database, but which must still be available for reporting. For the most part, SAP's data archiving concept is based on the archiving objects of the Archive Development Kit (ADK).

Archiving Objects

Archiving objects describe the structure and context of the data to be archived. Predefined archiving objects are available for the applications for which data is to be archived. In data archiving, the system writes the data to archive files according to the relevant archiving objects and stores these.

Example

Financial Accounting documents are archived using the archiving object FI_DOCUMNT. This archiving object includes the document header, company code-specific postings, change documents, and related texts.

Steps for Data Archiving

Data archiving takes place in individual steps to ensure that only successfully archived data can be deleted. These are the three main steps:

Writing the data to be archived to a new archive file
Storing the archive files in an external store (optional)
Deleting the archived data from the database starting from the archived files you have created

The following illustration describes the data archiving procedure.

Figure 1: Data Archiving in the SAP System

Procedure

Familiarize yourself with the specifics of ADK-based data archiving.
More information:

Properties and Features of Data Archiving

Archiving Object

Archive Administration
Make the settings required for Customizing for data archiving.
More information: Customizing for Data Archiving
Execute the data archiving.
More information: Executing Data Archiving
Use the options for viewing and analyzing archive files.
More information:

Archive Information System

Archive File Browser

Table Analysis

Next Steps

Data Archiving in SAP NetWeaver AS (available archiving objects)