<p><b>Step 1: Creating the Archive object</b><br>CDB Archiving framework provides the user a transaction to create an archive object. Archive object specifies the data to be archived and how it should be done. It is independent of the technical specifications (like release and hardware) at the time of archiving. The SBDoc short name should be specified at the time of creation of Archive object. This information is used to create the table definition and structure involved in the archive process. So archive objects have to be re-created only if the SBDoc structure has changed. The archive objects have common write and delete programs. After successful creation of the archive object, the following actions take place -<br><b>1.</b> An entry is made in CDB_ARCH_OBJ table (used by the CDB Data archiving framework).<br><b>2.</b> A table by name <Archive object name>_ARCTAB is created which stores the archived object information.</p><br><p><b>Step 2: Creating a pre-processor program</b><br>The objective of the pre-processor program is to identify objects which need to eb archived and store these in the CDB archive table. This program, which is mandatory, has to be created by the user (this is not created by the CDB data archiving framework). The list of object ids and the archive object name are used by an API to write data to the CDB archive table. This API has to be used in the pre-processor program.</p><br><p><b>Step 3: Creating the Archive File</b><br>The write program reads the CDB archive data table for the selected archive object and gets the list of objects. The data to be archived is then read from the database and written to an archive file (in the background). The process will stop as soon as all data has been written to an archive file or the archive file has reached the maximum size (specified in customizing) or the archive file contains the maximum number of data objects (specified in customizing). In the later two cases, another archiving file will be created if there is still data to be archived.</p><br><p><b>Step 4: Storing Archive Files</b><br>The following are the different ways in which archive file can be stored -<br><b>1.</b> Storage Systems (if a storage system is connected to SAP Business Suite)<br><b>2.</b> HSM Systems<br><b>3.</b> Existing Storage Media (manually copy archive files to a tape)</p><p><b>Step 5: Executing Delete Programs</b><br>After closing the first archive file, the archive management system creates a new archive file and continues with the archiving process. Simultaneously, the archived data is read from the completed archive file or from the CDB archive data table and deleted from the database. This guarantees that only data that has been correctly saved in the archive file is deleted from the database.</p><br><p><b>Step 6: Executing Reload Programs</b><br>A reload program is used to reload data from archive files back into the database and must process all the archived data of an archiving session. If not all the data is reloaded into the database, the remaining archived data is written to a new archiving session. Once an archiving session is reloaded, it can no longer be accessed from archive management.</p>
