SAP provides the Archive
Development Kit (ADK) for realization of secure and efficient archiving
procedures, to support and simplify the development of archiving programs. ADK
provides a development environment where programming code is written to call
archiving objects. When the program is executed, the corresponding archiving
files are created. Figure 1
illustrates this relationship.
Figure1: Archive Development Kit
ADK creates the archiving files
from archive objects. It acts as an interface layer between archiving objects
and the archived files. To reduce the space consumed by the archived files, ADK
compresses the data 5 times the normal data. Only data in clustered tables is
left from being archived and stored, as it is, in the database.
ADK is central to creating,
opening, writing, reading and closing archive files, plus all administrative
issues, from scheduling jobs to communicating with external storage systems.
Another major function of ADK is
to retrieve archived files. Archived files normally have an outdated database
structure. ADK checks for the file format and encounters all potential problems,
which may evolve due to such files. The major functions of ADK are shown in
Figure 2.
Figure 2: Archive Development
Kit Functions
The ADK is designed to use in
client/server architecture. and provides an appropriate way of using system
resources efficiently.
ArchiveLink- The Optical Archiving Method
ArchiveLink is a SAP product that
enables data archiving for business documents in an optical storage system.
Through ArchiveLink , one can store scanned original documents, outgoing
documents, or print lists in optical systems. It is not possible to analyse them
with R/3 tools or load them into R/3, without the help of third party software.
Archive files created by R/3 data archiving, can be removed, analysed and
reloaded through ArchiveLink. The Complimentary Software Providers (CSP) [or
Third Party Software Providers] can also provide these solutions, which are
integrated with the SAP system to archive data from the database. Their
capabilities include:
