Archiving of old data in peoplesoft

Peoplesoft offers Data Archive Manager tools for easy archival of Peoplesoft Data. The following are the features of the PS Archive Manager
–>Integrated and consistent framework for archiving data
–>Uses predefined templates.
–> Archive multiple objects.
–>Leveraging the Archive Query in PeopleSoft Query.
–>Desired commit intervals.
–>Restore simplified
PeopleSoft Data Archive Manager includes the following main elements:
–> Archive object definition
–> Archive query definition
–> Archive template definition
–> Archive job definition
–> Restore query definition
–> Archive auditing

Archive object definition: It is a collection of tables that you archive. The object definition determines how you archive data from a table. Base tables are archived on a user specified query. Non-base tables are archived according to base table

Archive query definition: Need to define a new query as type “Archive” using Query Manager. Archiving is done based on the selection of the query.

Archive template definition: It integrates Archive object and Query used to archive. One of the archive objects must be a base object. Define the selection Criteria to archive from the base table. No need to define selection criteria for all the dependent records. Specify the AE processes to run before and after the data has been archived.

Archive job definition: Define archive jobs to archive data. First define the archive job information including the Archive Template, Archive Process, and Commit Processing. Submit archive jobs in a batch using the process scheduler. It prompts for run time parameters like bind variables and the query to use.

Archive Audits: Archive of objects can be audited. It reports about details about past Archive runs, selection Criteria used to archive or delete and also generates Query used to Archive. OPRID wise report can also be generated.

Benefits of Archive Manager:
–>PS Delivered Archive objects and Templates for transaction tables
ex: TL_PAYABLE_TIME,TL_RPTD_TIME, HRS_APPLICANT
–>Flexibility of running archive process basing on business needs
–>Minimal technical team help
–>Processing types Selection, Delete from a single Archive process
–>Restoring from archive tables just a click away, no separate code required.
–>Restoring only the set of data archived before.
–>Audit of the Archive processes.
–>No separate archive jobs for child tables, they can be clubbed with master tables and PS will take care of archiving and restore automatically.

There is a thumb rule to assign a record as History Record, history record should have all the fields as base table(archived table) and also it should have subrecord “PSARCHIVE_SBR”.

Analysis for the Peoplesoft Data Archiving
It depends on what are you trying to achieve. Are you trying to archive old data for reducing database storage? I assume so. If then, as per my knowledge, for database archiving, our customers do not use Peoplesoft Archive Manager for many reasons because the historical data is stored inside the same Peoplesoft Database.

Assuming that you are planning to archive old data to free up space and gain more performance, there are other options. The industry leading Enterprise Data Management solutions are with IBM’s Optim or HP’s DBArchive. As per my knowledge both supports Peoplesoft Database along with Upgrades. Please check their respective product websites.

One important thing to remember is what will happen to the archived data during the application upgrade. While archiving historical data, we should make sure we will be able to upgrade them as part of the Peoplesoft upgrade. Also, it should free up storage costs to minimize the cost for the customers…