topic Re: Archiving procedure in Application Development and Automation Discussions

Archiving procedure

Former Member — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 08:18:49 GMT

Hi all,

After reading some online documentaion, i come to know that archiving procedure is done by 3 steps.

Step 1: Creating the (First) Archive File

Step 2: Storing Archive Files

Step 3: Executing Delete Programs

In step1 the write program will create archive files and in step3 delete program will delete data by reading the same from archive files. still i have some open questions on these..kindly provide useful answers.

1.write program will b created by developer or standard programs r there?

2.what is archive file ( i mean which format it wud b)and where it is going to store?

3.how can we provide read access to archive data ?

4.delete program will also b created by developer?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Praneeth

Message was edited by: Praneet

Re: Archiving procedure

Former Member — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 08:25:58 GMT

1.write program will b created by developer or standard programs r there?

Ans) Standard programs are available. They are associated with the archive objects. 2 types of programs: Write and Delete

2.what is archive file ( i mean which format it wud b)and where it is going to store?

Ans) Write program writes data to the Archive file. You need to maintain the archiving customizing for the file names. Refer http://help.sap.com//saphelp_erp2004/helpdata/EN/8d/3e4f44462a11d189000000e8323d3a/content.htm

4.delete program will also b created by developer?

Ans) This is also a standard program.

-Kiran

Re: Archiving procedure

Former Member — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 08:35:32 GMT

Correction in your statement - the step 3 will not delete data by reading from the archive files, it will delete the same data that has been passed to it as a variant. The programmer needs to verify that the data written by the write program is complete before scheduling the delete.

1.write program will b created by developer or standard programs r there?

4.delete program will also b created by developer?

Both are possible. For standard objects (accounting docs, po, so etc) SAP provides the write and delete programs, for custom objects the developer will have to code. Transaction SARA has the list of all standard archiving objects provided by SAP, and the corresponding write/delete/verify programs for each.

2.what is archive file ( i mean which format it wud b)and where it is going to store?

The format and storage details of the Archive file are set using the FILE transaction. You can specify various parameters like the name of the file (generated at runtime), storage location, number of records in one file, etc.

3.how can we provide read access to archive data ?

Some SAP transactions (FI mostly) prompt the user whether the system should go and look in the Archive location if the record is not found.

SARI is another transaction which can be used to generate reports to enable viewing the archived data.

Hope this helps.

Sudha

Re: Archiving procedure

Former Member — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 08:51:47 GMT

Hi Sudha,

Thanks for useful reply. Following is the extract from the online sap help. kindly have a look and confirm ur answer.

After closing the first archive file, the archive management system creates a new archive file and continues with the archiving process. While this happens, another program reads the archived data from the completed archive file and deletes it from the database. This procedure guarantees that only data that has been correctly saved in the archive file is deleted from the database..

and one more thing. if we store archive to a file where it is going to be stored / preferrable to store to provide read access whenever necessary...is it internal storage to sap or external storage..?

can u explain a bit how can we achieve the read access?

regards,

praneet.

Re: Archiving procedure

Former Member — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 09:04:06 GMT

The highlighted statement (from your email) talks about the read program, which is executed as an intermediate step to the write program and the delete program. The read program reads all the archive files and displays it onthe screen for the programmer to verify. Once this has been done, the delete program can then be scheduled to delete the above data.

Normally all these programs are scheduled using variants.

Storage of Archive files: This, again, can be done according to the customer's preference. The archiving mechanism provides the infrastructure to store the files either onthe same app server, or a different file server, or even on other media such as optical drives, tapes etc. However, for the latter, the Archivelink would have to be enabled.

Hope this helps.

Sudha

Re: Archiving procedure

Former Member — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 09:19:47 GMT

Hi Sudha,

Thanks again.

can u provide me the total arhcive flow process including read access to it by taking a sample thing ( assume some material data or some thing), if u have any notes ..

i wud b greatful to you.

Regards,

Praneet.

Re: Archiving procedure

Former Member — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 09:30:15 GMT

This link from SAP Help should give you a very clear picture:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw2004s/helpdata/en/8d/3e4f44462a11d189000000e8323d3a/frameset.htm

Also, the tree under 'Archiving Procedure' is almost a step- by-step details of all processes involved in Archiving. It has everything from scheduling the pre-preprocessing files to writing archives, reading, deleting, etc.

FYI - transaction AOBJ has the complete list of Archiving objects avbl in the system, you can try out with executing the archive on one of the BC* objects to learn.

Hope this helps.

Sudha

Re: Archiving procedure

Former Member — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:46:11 GMT

Hi sudha,

i've done good research in sap help, got a clear idea on the whole process. could please clarify the below mentioned things.

1. If data not to b archived and only deletion is required , can we use deletion program from the particular Archive object to delete the content? Is there any other better approach ?

2. still need some explantion on external storage and accees. suppose assume that we have copied the archived content to a tape and deleted from the SAP, suppose in future if we want to have a look at a specified data how can we see it from SAP? ( i mean how the integration between SAP and tape ) what does an SAP's archive link do ? How does it relates to BOR and what is link table?

Kindly clarify...advise me if i am wrong any where.

Regards,

Praneeth.

Re: Archiving procedure

Former Member — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 13:12:34 GMT

1. If data not to b archived and only deletion is required , can we use deletion program from the particular Archive object to delete the content? Is there any other better approach ?

This is a tricky question - technically this is possible, but I would strongly advocate against it. Records of documents such as POs, accounting docs etc are legally required to be maintained for a certain period, and deleting them permanently without storing elsewhere first might not be a good practice.

2. still need some explantion on external storage and accees. suppose assume that we have copied the archived content to a tape and deleted from the SAP, suppose in future if we want to have a look at a specified data how can we see it from SAP? ( i mean how the integration between SAP and tape ) what does an SAP's archive link do ? How does it relates to BOR and what is link table?

The Archivelink is used to store data on external media. To retrieve the archived data you can use transaction SARI, which can generate reports based on infostructures of the archiving object. This link should give you further details on the SAP Archive Infosystem:

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw2004s/helpdata/en/5c/11af98d55711d2b1f80000e8a5b9a5/frameset.htm

Some transactions (eg: FB02) also will offer to search archives if the document number entered by the user is not found in the database. This can be set up in customizing.

The BOR, to me, is a completely different concept - I do not think the archive objects have anything at all to do with the BOR. However, I may be wrong here.

Hope this helps.

Sudha

Message was edited by: Sudha Mohan

Re: Archiving procedure

Former Member — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 13:42:59 GMT

Hi sudha,

Thx for the reply.

i will not close the thread, still i am doing R&D, if i get any more doubts i will use this thread only.

Regards,

Raja.

Re: Archiving procedure

Former Member — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 04:46:22 GMT

Hi Sudha/Raj,

This thread looks good and very informative,I have one question with regard to archiving...Once we finish with the archiving what's the procedure for doing the database re-org? Is there any special tools for that or any third party tools?

Regards,

Etsg