SAP Active Archiving: Improve SAP System Performance and Reduce Maintenance Costs with SAP ILM

SAP Active Archiving can help manage data growth, improve overall system performance and reduce costs.

The widespread adoption of SAP solutions within enterprises has led to exponential growth in data. But if left unchecked, this unmitigated data influx will stretch SAP system resources thin and degrade system performance, resulting in a loss of productivity and frustrated business users. Overcoming these issues requires prioritizing information lifecycle management (ILM).

Challenges of Unchecked SAP Data Growth

On average, SAP databases are growing at 15–20% annually. Managing an enormous amount of data in SAP systems while simultaneously taking in increasing quantities has detrimental impacts on the cost, data access, and maintenance of SAP systems.

Rising Costs

The accumulation of SAP data significantly impacts the overall expenses associated with SAP systems. This includes the cost of database and application licenses, hardware, and backups, which all increase proportionately to the amount of incoming SAP data.

Slow SAP System Performance

Data growth directly impacts SAP system memory and CPU utilization, reducing the processing speed of applications—and on the user end, seemingly unresponsive systems decrease internal productivity.

Compliance Challenges

Over the years, the challenge of adhering to regulatory requirements has become more complex. The risks associated with inaccurate data management are rising in tandem with the amount of information being processed. Growth in data can lead to inconsistencies and heighten concerns over security, privacy, and retention.

Benefits of Active SAP Data Archiving

Three options exist for businesses overwhelmed with data in their SAP systems:

1. Pay the exorbitant costs to support the ever-expanding SAP system
2. Delete old data (though this comes with the potential for severe regulatory repercussions, in addition to both business and operational issues)
3. Implement an effective Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) strategy in the form of SAP active archiving.

SAP archiving is hands-down the most effective solution to the challenges of rapidly growing SAP data. Infrequently used or rarely accessed SAP data can be identified and moved into low-cost archives. This reduces the amount of storage space needed for the primary database and improves system performance by reducing the amount of unnecessary data that needs to be processed.

Moreover, active database archiving will transform your system with improved system performance, reduced costs, and consistent data access. Additionally, archiving active databases can ensure consistent access to data across all platforms and applications.

SAP archiving also offers numerous other benefits, such as:

• Improved scalability
• Increased security
• Reduced maintenance costs and efforts associated with patching and backup processes
• Improved compliance with regulatory standards
• Improved disaster recovery capabilities
• Easy retrieval of archived data

With all these advantages associated with archiving SAP data, it’s no surprise that many companies have adopted this solution as an effective way to manage their rapidly growing SAP databases. Let’s dive into these benefits further.

Improved System Performance

High volumes of SAP data can significantly impact system performance. Policy-based archiving of historical data results in fewer transactions being processed and increased application response times and user productivity.

Reduced Costs

Archiving can help reduce the costs associated with storing and managing large amounts of data in expensive SAP systems. This is because archived data resides in a separate location, not actively stored or processed by the SAP system. This reduces the hardware, software, and maintenance costs associated with the operational system.

Consistent Data Access

There is a widespread misunderstanding that archiving hinders a company's ability to access the data sets required for regulatory purposes. However, this is not the case. Unlike backups, archiving allows for easy access to stored data and active data from the original SAP application. The only limitation is that the inactive data will be in a read-only format (which is actually beneficial for regulatory compliance).

Compliance with SAP Data Regulations

Regulations necessitate data retention. This factor is partially responsible for the explosion in data volume in SAP systems. However, data archiving solves regulatory issues by providing a cost-effective and secure storage solution that keeps required data sets available for the time mandated by a business or regulatory compliance. In addition, timed data destruction plans reduce liability by destroying sensitive data once retention periods have expired.

How SAP Active Archiving Fits Perfectly into the SAP ILM Strategy

As data demands increase, businesses must find a way to manage information. ILM is an excellent strategy for handling the natural devaluing of information over time. Businesses can reduce their overall data management costs, maintain regulatory compliance, and improve system performance by implementing a structured ILM strategy with regular archiving for their SAP data.

SOLIXCloud Enterprise Archiving for SAP ILM

SOLIXCloud Enterprise Archiving for SAP is an SAP Netweaver-certified solution that implements advanced policy-based ILM for your complete SAP system.

With SOLIXCloud, you’ll reduce storage costs and improve system performance by archiving unnecessary data. The extensive policy-based proficiencies will meet your regulatory, security, analytical, and compliance needs. Plus, the unified yet flexible enterprise archiving platform has multi-cloud capabilities with a petabyte-scale repository and a low-cost, pay-as-you-go model.

Its advanced capabilities result from 20 years of experience assisting in ILM for leading global enterprises. Through its services, you can optimize your digital infrastructure, regardless of whether you utilize SAP or Non-SAP solutions. Additionally, the platform’s flexibility works with both structured and unstructured data.

If you’re ready to optimize your SAP system, contact SOLIX for a demo.