SAP data archiving objects: A quick guide to knowing all about it

Author: Priyasha Purkayastha, Global Content Manager, TJC Group

Technical Consultants: Jérôme PHILIPPE, Project Manager SAP Archiving/ILM, TJC Group | Vivien Rivoalen, Archiving Consultant & Developer, TJC Group

Whether you are migrating to S/4HANA or simply want to optimise your system performance – data archiving is a must to-do process. While data archiving offers a plethora of benefits, there are several unknown aspects that one must know of. A prominent example of the same are the archiving objects – an essential part of all archiving processes. Explore more as we explain everything related to objects of archiving in detail.  

Introduction

The IT landscape is undergoing a paradigm shift, thanks to digitalisation and the rapid adoption of AI and automation. Consequently, these modern-age growth has led to an exponential increase in data volume, estimating a global data creation of more than 180 zettabytes by the end of 2025. While data growth cannot be stopped or slowed down as such, it can surely be managed accurately with processes like SAP data archiving. In fact, archiving helps ensure legal and regulatory compliance while enabling organisations to achieve their sustainability goals. By archiving historical or inactive data, organisations achieved major benefits like reduced HANA database, enhanced data security, faster disaster recovery and business continuity, and so on. Yielding remarkable results with data archiving is a well anticipated thing. However, have you ever thought about the several behind-the-scenes factors that archiving comprises of?

SAP archiving objects: What do you need to know?

One such aspect of archiving are the archiving objects, which help moves data no longer needed in the system, but must be retained in an archive file. When archiving, the file is saved in a separate storage location to reduce the load in the database. Additionally, the archived gets deleted from the main database, further reducing the load and optimising the system performance.

In fact, when embarking on an SAP data archiving project, you must take a look at the SAP archiving objects. As defined by SAP, “an archiving object helps accurately specify which data is archived and how. Moreover, it describes database objects that must be handled together as a single business object.”

Standard objects in the SAP archiving process

For archiving an SAP system, there are predefined objects that helps determine the data to be archived. Each of these objects, furthermore, frameworks the related tables, selection criteria, and programs for writing and deleting the archived files. As a matter of fact, understanding these objects is quintessential to managing the lifecycle of data more efficiently. A few standard and commonly used SAP archiving objects are listed below –

• Purchase orders: MM_EKKO
• Financial documents: FI_DOCUMNT
• Sales documents: SD_VBAK
• For SAP BP archiving: CA_BUPA
• For SAP IDoc archiving: IDOC

Standard prerequisites for archiving objects to archive data

Customising

For organisations planning to implement SAP data archiving, you must make the following settings in customising for the category of the data selected for archiving –

Data archiving, data destruction, data deletion – Data archiving and data destruction with archiving objects:

• Customise cross-archiving object
• Create logical file path
• Customising specific to archiving objects
• Activate archive information structures

Moreover, defining the residence time for the SAP archiving objects in customising for the respective category under –

Data archiving, data destruction, data deletion – Data archiving and data destruction with archiving objects – Residence time

Authorisations

For all data archiving processes, you must assign the required authorisation to the users of the system for programs based on the object S_ARCHIVE.

Enhancements

Necessary enhancements in all the required archiving object can be made to manage the following cases –

• SAP data archiving and/or deletion of additional database tables
• If additional checks are needed to meet business requirements
• If additional condition fields are needed during retention rule evaluation

Data archiving process

The preprocessing phase: Data objects are checked by the system to determine if they qualify for archiving.

The write phase: Data that can be archived are moved from the main operational system to archive files.  

The delete phase: The system reads data saved in the archive files and then, deletes their content from the main operational system.

Once the data is completely archived, it is saved in a separate storage location, with defined retention periods.

Archiving objects: When ILM is activated in the system

SAP Information Lifecycle Management or SAP ILM is an SAP solution designed to manage data throughout its entire lifecycle. ILM starts from creation to storage, retention, and eventual deletion, in a way that balances business needs, compliance requirements, and IT efficiency. So, when ILM is activated in the system, a lot of SAP archiving objects can be used in the following ways –

• Object for data archiving: where the archived data remains available
• Object for data destruction: where the archived data is destroyed

However, in both the cases, data is processes in two steps –

• First, data is read from the database, then written in archive files.
• Second, data is read from archive files, then deleted in the database.

Furthermore, when ILM gets activated in the system, there are three types of archiving objects one can consider –

• Standard objects for archiving: This one can only archive data.
• ILM objects: With this object, you can archive and/or destroy data.
• HR ILM objects: With this object, you can only run data destruction.

Bear in mind that these three types of objects use archiving techniques. Whether the object performs both archiving and destruction or only archiving or destruction is defined by SAP. It may change over time.

Interestingly, there also is a fourth object types, known as the data destruction, which can be used when ILM is activated. With this object, you can process data for which an SAP archiving object does not exist; process data that does not use archive files but directly data from the database in a single step, like a classical housekeeping process. However, unlike housekeeping jobs, the data destruction object needs an ILM customising while a trace of data destruction runs remains logged in the system  

Automating data archiving: Yield maximum benefits with ASC

If you look deeper into archiving, you will see there are 100s of archiving objects and a lot more complex process involved. Data archiving is a recurrent manual process requiring a series of jobs that must be reviewed and executed regularly. Manual processes are always tedious and time-consuming, and here’s when automation comes into play.

Moreover, by automating the entire archiving process, organisations can ensure lower total costs of ownership (TCOs), more accurate data compliance in their systems, and so on. Having said that, with S/4HANA migration, cutting down on the cost and migration time by archiving obsolete data becomes a necessity. Having an archiving process backed by automation comes in handy here as it can archive data seamlessly, further, helping achieve a time-effective migration.

Archiving Sessions Cockpit: An automated software for SAP data archiving

Introducing the Archiving Sessions Cockpit (ASC) from TJC Group that serves as a powerful data archiving solution designed to optimise and automate the entire archiving process. Not just that, with ASC, you can also enjoy an automated data destruction process. Developed by TJC Group, certified by SAP, the Archiving Sessions Cockpit gives you full control of your archiving runs from a single, centralised interface while meeting SAP’s standard principles.

From SAP archiving objects to deletion of the archived files, the Archiving Sessions Cockpit streamlines the complete data archiving and ILM lifecycle, removing the need for repetitive manual intervention. Moreover, ASC ensures all SAP ILM processes are executed flawlessly, freeing up your internal teams to focus on more strategic initiatives that drive greater ROI.

By leveraging our automated SAP data archiving software, your organisation can achieve significant savings in database storage costs during S/4HANA migration, keep data growth under control post-migration, and seamlessly enforce privacy policy compliance.

Benefits of the Archiving Sessions Cockpit

With ASC, you get the following benefits –

• It can automate mass data archiving, including initial, regular, and selected dates.
• ASC can schedule archiving sessions in sync with the IT and business calendars.
• It manages all the jobs and archiving runs from start till its completion.
• It automatically recovers and restarts the sessions in case of any disruptions.
• ASC can manage detailed archiving variants, allowing for fine archiving granularity.
• ASC allows the continuity of end-user access, even if the data is archived.

Final word

As the blog concludes, you need to understand that archiving objects are one of the most important factors of data archiving. While financial documents, purchase orders, sales documents, etc., are some of the standard objects; there are several hundred others like production planning, human resources, and so on. That said, there are also technical SAP archiving objects, which you will learn about in our upcoming blogs.

For now, if you are ready to automate your SAP data archiving process, get in touch with us today!

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