Archiving in SAP BW 7.x with SAND Server

[Former Member]

  Applies to:

  SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (formerly BI). This will work on SAP BI 7.x versions.

Summary :

This document will help to understand the process of Archiving while dealing with SAND server as external storage for Archiving.

This archiving procedure may be treated as general while the external server may vary as per project to project.

Authors: Arpit Khandelwal, Asish Kumar Sahu.

Company: Accenture Services Pvt. Ltd.

  Author's Bio:

  Arpit Khandelwal is a SAP BI Consultant currently working with Accenture Services Private Limited. He has around 2 years of experience in BW/BI implementation and support projects. He has been particularly involved in Archiving Activities in SAP BW system.

Asish is  working as SAP BI Consultant with Accenture Services Private Limited. Skill set includes SAP Business Intelligence, ABAP and Business Objects .

  Methodology::

  Scope of an Archiving project needs to be defined while starting a Archiving Project.

For this, you need to identify the DSO's and Infocube's where most of the data is retained for many years.

Next part of the project scope is the Basic Housekeeping Activities for the System/Log Tables.

Also apart from the System/Log Tables we need to do housekeeping for the Data Targets also with the data that might

be obsolete for reporting or legal retention purpose.The House Keeping Activities part has already been covered in my

earlier document at http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-39735

Here in this article, we will specifically learn how to Archive data in BW system using DAP’s (Data Archiving Process).

For this, the assumption is that reader has already established a proper external server connection and DAP’s are already

created for the DSO’s & Cube’s.

What is DAP??

DAP (Data Archiving Process) is similar to a DTP (Data Transfer Process) in a BW system.

DAP is used for archiving which is similar to running a DTP to load data. A DAP will look as shown below.

Steps to Archive data using DAP ::

1) Verify the configuration of a DAP

For this,we need to use Tcode RSDAP.

  Mention the name of the Object type (DSO/Cube) and name of that DSO/Cube.

 

  Click on display to check the configuration.

Now click on the Server Check button marked in Red in below screen.

The server connection should show status as GREEN then only we can proceed with the Archiving.

If there is some issue with the setting, then we need to check the same with our server maintaining team.

2) To verify the data present in the source Cube/DSO.

When the DAP runs, it will sent the data marked in the time-period range to the SAND server.

Once this is done, it will delete the same data from the Cube/DSO.

To prove this, we are checking the data in Cube prior to running the DAP.

Checking data availability in cube for period 09.2008-11.2008

 

  Data in Cube for above selections::

  It means data is available in the cube and can be archived.

3) Verify that Cube data is compressed (pre-requisite for Archiving an InfoProvider data)

All the requests in the Cube should be compressed.

4) Verify the creation of Archiving (nearlining) request based on the Partitioning characteristic to nearline the data

  In our case, the Partitioning Characteristic will be Calender Month and we are going to perform Archiving for

  period 08.2008-11.2008.For this, go to the Info-Cube/DSO through RSA1 T-code and click on the Archiving Tab in Manage

  of the infoprovider.Kindly note that there will be only one specific DAP for a Cube/DSO.

  Once this DAP has been created, then the Archiving Tab in Manage of Infoprovider will be created automatically.

  Once you goto the Archiving Tab, click on symbol “Archiving Request”.

  Provide the range of months you want to Nearline/Archive the data.

Make the continue process until target status as 70.Run the job now in Background.

  Check until the request turns to green.

  After this converts to GREEN status, check the data for same range in Cube as we did earlier.

  What will happen to reports based on this Info-Cube??

As the data has been deleted from the cube and sent to SAND server, the report will not display data related

to Archived/Nearline period any more.To read the archived data as well in the report, we require a small change in the

Query Property which is explained as below.

Point 1) Open the report in RSRT T-code. Click on the Properties button.

  Point 2) Put a check on the option “Read Near-Line Storage As well”.

  How to bring back the Archived/Nearline data back to BW system from SAND Server??

  Goto Archiving Tab of the InfoCube/DSO whose data needs to be brought back to BW system.

Check the request with the Data Period Range of data which needs to restored back to BW.

Double click on lock symbol for that Time Period request.

  After double-clicking on LOCK symbol, a dialogue box will appear as shown.

  Run this reload of data back from SAND server to BW in background.

  Another dialogue box will come. Click YES to continue ahead.

  Well this will take some time, you can monitor the request status to turn green again.

  Once this is over, the request data will be restored back from SAND to BW.