Data and Document Archiving

for SAP R/3: Mission-Critical,

Yet Easier Than You Think
by Ralf Klinkhammer
Reprinted with permission from SAP Insider, Volume 2, Number 1 (Jan Feb Mar 2001) 2001 SAP Publications.

Surprising as it may seem, a fair percentage of SAPs 24,000 worldwide users

are unaware of the benefits and, more
importantly, the necessity of archiving
SAP data and business documents. All
too often, in the intense and focused
exercise of installing enterprise-wide SAP
functionality, scant attention is paid to
the fact that the amount of data stored
in R/3 will eventually exceed certain
technical and organizational limits. How
quickly thresholds for real-time access
to active data are reached depends on
company size and transaction volume, but
be sure of this: these limits will be reached.
And despite the rapidly expanding capacity
of hard drives and online storage systems,
the reality is that you cant simply keep
adding disk space forever.
As any database administrator will
tell you, there are limitations on table
and index sizes which, once breached,
can cause noticeable degradation of
performance of any real-time database
system, including R/3. Online response
time drops, record deletions take longer,
and database backups and restores
(infrequent, of course!) become intolerably sluggish. Suddenly, your employees
particularly those who are strictly
concerned about how the system affects
their ability to do their work are
throwing pencils at their screens and
pointing fingers at the IT department.
Avoiding this scenario is simple.
Its just a matter of understanding the

benefits of archiving, both technical and

functional, and then taking advantage
of the many tools available for the job.

R/3s Built-In Archiving

Functionality
The good news is that the standard SAP
system includes a variety of ways to
solve the problem of too much data.
Archiving capabilities are provided
across all modules by one of two built-in,
centralized components: ArchiveLink
(or the newer ContentServer) and SAP
ADK (Archiving Development Kit).
In many cases, however, users are
either unaware of these components or
incorrectly assume that implementing
the embedded R/3 archiving functionality
requires expert programming knowledge.
The reality is, using SAP R/3s archiving
tools is simple and straightforward.

Two Types of Archiving

Before detailing the benefits and standard elements of SAP archiving, lets
take a moment to clarify terminology.
Archiving is a general term that SAP R/3
users should immediately separate into
two distinct categories: data archiving
and business document archiving.

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paper document, an automatic calculation within R/3, a barcode scan, or a

manual keyboard input, among others.
As data enters the database, it is
considered active, while it is still
being processed in support of business
operations. At some point, the data
becomes aged, and should be taken
from the active database and stored
elsewhere. In most cases, archived data
should be accessible for a defined period
of time before being completely deleted.

Data archiving: Basically, all data

that you enter or edit using online R/3
screen transactions resides in the R/3
database. This data may have originated
from a number of sources: an inbound

Business document archiving:

Traditionally, this is what people think
of when they hear the word archiving,
because they are familiar with the filing
and management of paper documents.
SAP R/3 handles the conversion of
inbound paper documents into electronic
data either through manual entry of
the information on the form, or through
an automated scanning process, usually
handled through third-party Complementary Software Provider (CSP)
solutions. R/3 also generates outbound
paper documents using data from its
database, including numerous forms,
reports, and print lists. All these paper
documents can be archived in electronic
format to help reduce the cost of
managing paper records.

R/3 Archiving Components

As mentioned earlier, R/3 contains standard components that support data and

business document archiving. In order to

implement basic R/3 system archiving,
users interact with SAPs Archive
Development Kit (ADK). Additional tools,
in the form of the Data Retention Tool
(DART) and the Archive Information
System (AS), round out the standard
SAP archiving functionality.
Archive Development Kit (ADK)
In some ways, the name for this functional interface is misleading because
many people interpret development kit
as something that requires programming
knowledge and technical savvy. In fact,
the SAP Archive Development Kit is not
a programming environment. It comes
ready to configure and can easily be
used to extend the basic functionality
of SAP archiving. In order to use any
of the other archiving tools, you must
interact with the ADK.
Essentially, the ADK creates archive
files by utilizing data objects. These data
objects enable different organizational
views of R/3 database table contents.
In other words, data can be logically
extracted from various database tables
and combined into a meaningful file of
historical data. These files are then
stored outside the R/3 database within
the file system of your server. It is then
your obligation to back up these archive
files to support long-term storage and
retrieval requirements. Again, terminology is important. SAP R/3 archive
files are a special type of R/3 file that
resides outside the R/3 database.
The ADK also provides hooks into the
standard SAP R/3 system. These hooks
allow third-party CSPs to communicate
through R/3 ArchiveLink to extend built-in
R/3 archiving functionality. Note that
ArchiveLink was enhanced and updated by
SAP with Version 4.5, and is now called
ContentServer. While ContentServer uses
a different data communication method
to work with external solutions, it provides
the same basic functionality as ArchiveLink.
Data Retention Tool (DART)
The Data Retention Tool, downloadable
from SAPNet, is an add-on for older

The Benefits of Archiving

There are several important reasons to regularly archive both R/3 data and R/3related business documents: performance, cost savings, legal requirements, and
streamlining of business processes.
Performance
As mentioned earlier, the long-term accumulation of data in the online, real-time
R/3 database will ultimately reach a point where system response time begins to
deteriorate. Data archiving (along with behind-the-scenes tuning from your friendly
database administrator) helps keep the online database streamlined and responsive,
which means that your business can keep pace with daily business activities.
Cost Savings
Both data and business document archiving can contribute to substantial reductions
in operating expenses. In the case of data archiving, maintaining control over the
size of the online database can help avoid unnecessary investment in disk capacity.
A hidden cost savings comes from reduced downtime during database backups,
database recoveries, and conversion and upgrade efforts. For example, as global
companies convert from individual currencies to support the Euro, the database
must be down for a period of time in order to update all records, deal with changes
to database field sizes, etc.The more aged records that can be removed from the
database via archiving, the less downtime will be incurred during the conversion.
Major savings can be gained by minimizing paper management. By converting
inbound, outbound, and print documents to electronic images, many paper management inefficiencies can be eliminated: no duplication of files, no lost documents,
reduction of filing space, reduced staff, improved document retrieval speed, etc.
According to many third-party optical archiving partners, the cost of an optical
data and business document archiving add-on can be cost-justified even if it is only
used for outbound documents. Simply by implementing an outbound optical archiving
solution, the company is positioned to begin using both inbound document archiving
and optical data archiving when it is ready.
Legal Requirements
Government regulations often require the retention of operational, financial, and
business documents and data for long periods of time. While paper documents have
served this purpose for years, response times and accuracy in audits and other legal
proceedings can be greatly improved through electronic archiving, and result in
further cost savings.
Streamlining of Business Processes
Archiving, in particular, business document archiving, can be the cornerstone of efforts
to improve workflow efficiency. Numerous companies can attest to the enormous
benefits gained from converting paper documents into scanned images. From improved
security to the easy search-and-retrieval of documents that are no longer active,
archiving can drive significant, positive improvements in day-to-day operations.

versions of SAP R/3. For later versions,

beginning with Release 4.5, DART is
included in the standard R/3 system.
DART was developed jointly over a twoyear period by the US Internal Revenue
Service (IRS) and ASUG (Americas

Reprinted with permission from SAP Insider, Volume 2,

Number 1 (Jan Feb Mar 2001). 2001 SAP Publications.

SAP Users Group). Its express purpose

is to improve the ability of companies to
perform IRS-compliant retrievals of
archived information. DART uses a separate query-and-retrieval interface within
the SAP GUI to extract IRS-related

www.sapinsider.com | Jan Feb Mar 2001 | SAP insider 2

data directly from the archive files

created by the ADK.
It is important to remember that the
ADK archive files reside on your servers
file system. These files contain historical
operational and financial data, and your
IT department must arrange to preserve
these files for whatever long-term
retention period is required. Often, this
means backing up the files to tape.
Optical jukebox storage of archive files
and business documents is often an
alternative or adjunct to tape backup.
Archive Information System (AS)
This SAP archiving component provides
enhanced retrieval capabilities against
previously archived data (not business
documents). Again, archive files created
by the ADK are the source of the information. SAPs AS requires that the
archive files be loaded into new tables
within the database. In this approach,
AS requires some detailed, technical
knowledge of the database table structure
and field layouts, because the current
database structure may not be identical
to what existed when the archive file was
originally created. Because of this requirement, AS is R/3s least-used archiving
component. The good news is that SAP
is working to improve the AS function to
make it easier to use.

Optical Archiving
Clearly, SAP R/3 includes various options
for getting your archiving function up
and running. Through ArchiveLink and
ContentServer, SAP also makes it
possible for CSPs to extend archiving
beyond the basics.
Many SAP R/3 users have found
that supplementing standard R/3 archive
functionality with an integrated optical
archiving solution is beneficial and
extremely cost-effective. These solutions
are offered by a number of third-party
CSPs. Typically, these products provide,
to varying degrees, the capability to:

Scan paper documents

Route them electronically

Search and retrieve archived items

quickly

Optical archiving also supports the

long-term storage and searching of print
lists and reports, which can be a tremendous time saver for many organizations.

Business Workflow to
Streamline Business Processes
Most optical archiving solutions provide
some level of integration and support for
SAPs Business Workflow functionality.
Business Workflow allows users to define
and automate the flow of paper and
documents through their business. There
are two primary scenarios for using
optical archiving, early and late,
both of which are supported within a
standard R/3 system.
Users who are just getting started
with optical archiving will find that late
archiving is easy to implement. The main
reason is that late archiving literally
requires no changes to business processes.
The company processes paper documents
and data as it normally does, then adds
a concluding step of scanning the paper
into an electronic format for permanent
storage. This eliminates the normal,
inefficient filing of paper in cabinets, or
of boxing reams of paper for shipping
to a long-term storage facility. In addition to the obvious benefits of reduced
paper filing time, late archiving provides
substantially improved retrieval time.
It also makes the company more
comfortable with electronic archiving
in preparation for a possible move to
early archiving.
Companies looking to substantially
improve their operations and streamline
their business processes will implement
the early archiving scenario. Here, documents are converted to electronic images
and files before normal processing begins.
This enables many additional benefits,
such as automated identification and
routing of documents, and elimination

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Store the images on write-once optical

media (which means the document
cannot be altered)

of multiple paper copies. In fact, many

companies find that implementing an
early archive scenario allows them to
thoroughly review and revamp their
existing business workflow and lower
the costs of conducting daily business.

SAP R/3 Archiving:

Time to Get Started
Archiving is an absolutely essential
element of a complete and efficient
implementation of SAP R/3. Experience
has shown that the biggest drawbacks
to establishing an effective archiving
capability is that users are relatively
unfamiliar with the existing R/3 archiving
tools and functions or they perceive that
archiving is too complex. Archiving is
not something to fear, but something
to embrace. If you want to keep key
people happy accountants, auditors,
database administrators, and end users
then take the time to learn more
about archiving. With just a little effort,
you can help your company get the most
out of SAP R/3 and save a tremendous
amount of money along the way.
Ralf Klinkhammer has more than 12 years of
systems consulting and implementation experience
in the data archiving and imaging systems markets.
Since 1995, he has served as the Project Manager
and co-developer of EASY-LINK for R/3, the SAP
ArchiveLink interface from EASY SOFTWARE.
Mr. Klinkhammer was directly responsible for
the creation of the EASY SOFTWARE Channel
for ArchiveLink consulting services practices
and has been directly involved in the successful
implementation of more than 50 SAP
ArchiveLink projects. He can be reached at
[email protected].
EASY SOFTWARE is a leading provider of
full-text data archiving and document management solutions with more than 5,500 corporate
customers and 400 partners worldwide. All
EASYWARE modules are interface-certified
by SAP and support SAP security, Business
Workflow, and mySAP.com. EASYWARE
solutions are easily implemented and extremely
cost-effective. For more information, visit
www.easy-software.net.

Reprinted with permission from SAP Insider, Volume 2,

Number 1 (Jan Feb Mar 2001). 2001 SAP Publications.