10 December 2009
Ten Tips for Successful SAP Archiving from Macro 4
A key hot topic at the SAP UK & Ireland User Group November 09 conference, where Macro 4 was an exhibitor, was SAP archiving.
For the many SAP software users who are currently planning their upgrade to SAP ERP 6.0, archiving older or unused data is a great way to speed up the upgrade process. It also helps to improve system performance, cut storage costs, reduce backup timescales and minimise unplanned system downtime.
Here Macro 4 offers ten tips for a successful archiving project, based on its experience of working with global SAP customers.
| 1 |
Do start archiving as soon as possible after a new SAP system goes live. Remember that SAP recommends you include archiving within your initial implementation project. Why? Because getting into good housekeeping habits from the outset will keep system performance at optimum levels and prevent unnecessary increases in storage costs later. |
| 2 |
Do consider archiving before business productivity starts to be affected. If your database has been expanding for a while, watch out for early warning signs that performance problems could be round the corner: slower or erratic batch response times, a gradual degradation in online response times or an increase in the number of query timeouts are all indicators that the database is getting too big. |
| 3 |
Do reassure end users in the business that archiving doesn’t mean data will be hidden away on magnetic tapes in a dusty old vault. Today’s archives are online, and archived data is accessible from the SAP application, so end users will see little difference. It’s just that the data is read-only, and is held in a compressed state on low-cost storage hardware. |
| 4 |
Do involve your business users from the outset. Together you will need to decide on your retention strategy: how long do different types of data need to be retained online? Which data can be deleted? Which needs to be archived and at what point in the future can it be removed from the archive? Buy-in from the business is essential so make sure you explain the benefits: better system performance for them and ultimately improved productivity and customer service. |
| 5 |
Do analyse your SAP database before you begin to help you decide where to start. There are up to 100,000 tables in the latest SAP software release so it’s important to prioritise. Macro 4 can provide a free database health check that will identify which of your tables hold the most data and where you have most scope to release data – because of its age and type. So you can focus on these key areas and deliver ‘quick wins’ to the business. |
| 6 |
Don't treat archiving as a one-off exercise. Once you have delivered your first ‘quick wins’ and demonstrated the benefits to your business, undertake another health check to help assess where your next set of savings can be made. Regular archiving is essential so that you continue to keep database growth under control. |
| 7 |
Don't expect to buy archiving ‘off the shelf’. In addition to an SAP-certified content server you will need specialist archiving skills to help you build, test and deploy your archiving strategy. For example, there are over 620 different SAP archiving objects – the programs that remove data from the SAP system. Use SAP archiving experts to guide you in choosing the correct archiving objects and customising them where necessary, to work with your SAP system. |
| 8 |
Don't archive everything all in one go. If you have been running SAP for a number of years you will have amassed significant volumes of data which should be removed from the live system in a succession of out-of-hours archiving runs. This will avoid impacting live system performance. Once you are up-to-date you will just need to schedule a regular archiving run – typically quarterly. |
| 9 |
Do reorganise your database indexes after archiving to ensure that you optimise system performance. And remember to reorganise your tables in order to reclaim spare disk space released by archiving. That’s well worth doing when you consider that a single terabyte of Tier 1 storage could cost as much as £150,000 over its lifetime, once you factor in support and maintenance overheads. |
| 10 |
Do remember that you can store more than just data on your archiving system. You will be able to archive documents from the SAP spool and scanned, inbound documents too. This will free up additional database space and provide convenient long-term access to print lists and other key documents. |
About Macro 4
Macro 4 is a global software company that helps organisations to improve the performance of their critical business applications. Macro 4’s solutions for application performance, document management and application availability are easy to use, fast to implement and deliver value quickly in even the most complex IT environments.
US and European subsidiaries and a network of international business partners represent the company in every major market worldwide.
Macro 4’s Document Management solutions capture, store, present and deliver business-critical data and documents electronically and physically in the most appropriate way to increase the efficiency of key processes such as SAP ERP, application decommissioning and customer service via the Internet or call centres.
Macro 4 is a part of the UNICOM Group of Companies.