Archiving historical data in SAP – why, when, how?

In an era of growing IT system complexity, rapid technological advancement, and increasingly stringent legal regulations, data management is becoming one of the key pillars of an organization’s success. This will be confirmed by many CIOs whose IT development budgets are largely consumed by the costs of maintaining hardware and database infrastructure. Databases measured in terabytes represent a significant risk factor for transformation projects, and when combined with in-memory technology, they also require strict discipline in data volume management.

Therefore, before migrating to the new system version, it is essential to:

• assess the value of data – identify which data is active, which is historical, and which is redundant,
• apply archiving – to reduce system load and optimize costs,
• implement information lifecycle management (ILM) – to ensure data complies with retention policies and legal regulations.

Technology without data is useless, and data without technology is inefficient. Their synergy forms the foundation of a modern, agile, and resilient organization.

For most organizations, SAP systems form the heart of business processes – finance, logistics, sales, production or HR. However, years of operation lead to the accumulation of enormous volumes of historical data: accounting documents, sales and purchase orders, inventory records or technical data. Some of this data is essential for day-to-day operations, while other data must be retained solely for legal, audit, or regulatory purposes. Much of this data:

• is no longer actively used but continues to burden production systems,
• originates from historical processes that have been automated or discontinued,
• is duplicated, leading to redundancy and errors.

Moreover, from an IT perspective, uncontrolled data growth poses real risks, including:

• decreased system performance and longer response times,
• increasing costs of maintaining hardware and database infrastructure,
• higher workload for IT teams and business users,
• extended backup and system recovery windows,
• complications during system upgrades and migrations,
• security breaches and operational errors.

A project of migration to SAP S/4HANA is one of the those milestones in the SAP system lifecycle that requires bringing order to this chaos, making numerous decisions about the optimal migration scenario, and reviewing and often redefining business processes. The time spent on removing unnecessary data, eliminating duplicates, standardizing, and verifying consistency will certainly not be wasted. This is where dedicated procedures for validating entered data, along with SAP transactions and programs for checking the consistency of transactional data, come into play. SAP provides such solutions for most data, such as fixed assets, aligning MM and FI modules, verifying material ledger or special ledger data.

Data-related activities, although essential, should serve as a prelude to a project of archiving old, no longer used data.

In the digital era, personal and transactional data is subject to increasingly stringent legal regulations. Regulations such as GDPR, SOX, DART, as well as local tax laws and industry-specific standards, require organizations not only to retain data for a defined period of time, but also to ensure its controlled deletion, access blocking, and preservation in the event of legal proceedings. All these rules make information lifecycle management and the selection of appropriate tools to support this process extremely important.

For organizations operating in the SAP environment, the manufacturer has already identified a product that is useful for developing strategies for managing and protecting processed data. This solution, which enables partial automation of data management rules, is SAP Information Lifecycle Management (ILM).

Functionally, the product supports:

• defining retention rules in accordance with legal provisions,
• automatic deletion of data after the retention period has expired,
• auditability and transparency of data-related processes,
• blocking the deletion of data involved in legal proceedings.

In the context of migration to SAP S/4HANA, implementing ILM and archiving prior to conversion helps avoid transferring data that no longer needs to be retained.

Effective archiving is not a one-time technical operation but a project that requires knowledge of both business processes and SAP mechanisms. A typical approach includes:

• Data analysis – identification of objects to be archived (e.g., invoices older than 10 years, closed production orders);
• Definition of retention criteria – compliant with local legal regulations and business requirements;
• Configuration and testing – preparation of archiving variants, test execution of processes, and verification of access to archived data;
• Data transfer – actual archiving and removal of data from the production database;
• Providing access – end users can continue to generate reports and view archived data within the familiar SAP environment;
• Maintaining the process – archiving should become a permanent component of the system lifecycle rather than a one-off activity performed before migration.

From the perspective of process efficiency, the initial phase of the project, focused on system analysis and the selection of criteria, is particularly important.

The purpose of a detailed analysis of the data stored in the system is to:

• identify document types (e.g., invoices, material documents, controlling documents, application logs),
• determine the data volume within each functional area (FI, MM, SD, CO, etc.),
• examine data activity – distinguishing between data that is still used operationally and data that is historical,
• assess the archiving potential – how much data can safely be transferred out of the production system.

During the analysis, SAP system reports, analytical tools (such as SAP Data Volume Management), and consultations with business process owners are used. On their basis, a report similar to the one below can be prepared to indicate the potential for data volume reduction.

The data analysis is followed by the definition of retention criteria, that is, the rules specifying:

• how long data should be retained in the production system,
• when data can be archived,
• when data must be deleted in accordance with legal regulations and company policies.

Retention criteria are determined based on:

• legal requirements (e.g., GDPR, SOX, local tax regulations),
• business requirements (e.g., data availability for analysis and audits),
• data type (e.g., financial documents vs. technical logs),
• operational processes (e.g., completion of the order lifecycle).

Example:

• VAT invoices – retention period of 6 years (in accordance with tax regulations),
• Application logs – retention period of 1 year,
• Controlling documents – retention period of 3 years, archiving after 2 years.

The remaining processes constitute the execution phase, that is, the stage where project assumptions are translated into concrete technical and organizational actions. In this phase, it is crucial to combine business knowledge, technological expertise, and regulatory compliance. The archiving project concludes with an evaluation of results and the identification of further optimization opportunities.

As part of the evaluation, the following is analyzed:

• reduction of production data volume – comparison of the system state before and after archiving
• impact on system performance – for example, shorter reporting times, faster transaction processing
• compliance with the retention policy – verification of whether data has been archived according to the defined rules
• availability of archived data – assessment of whether users can access the data in line with expectations.

A data volume reduction potential report prepared for one of our clients based on the analysis conducted prior to historical data archiving in SAP

Modern digital transformation is not only about implementing advanced technologies, but above all about redefining the way information is managed. Data drives automation, analytics, artificial intelligence, and innovation. However, without proper management, data can become a burden rather than an asset.

The archiving of historical data plays several key functions. It helps reduce the costs and risks associated with the project – a smaller database means shorter migration time, lower technical risk, and reduced licensing or subscription costs. Improved system performance translates into faster transactions and reporting, resulting in more efficient processes and greater user satisfaction.

Data management introduces discipline and retention processes that can be further developed in SAP S/4HANA, improving the information lifecycle management. Regulatory compliance is also an important aspect – archived data is stored in accordance with legal requirements while avoiding unnecessary load on the core system. Offloading the production database and keeping only business-relevant data facilitates the implementation of modern reporting and analytics tools.

In practice, many companies treat the data archiving and information lifecycle management project as the first stage of their S/4HANA conversion project. This makes it possible to organize and classify data, and to prepare the organization for the upcoming transformation.

Archiving in SAP is the process of transferring inactive, rarely used data from the production database to archive files and removing it from the active database. The data remains accessible – through standard SAP transactions and reports – but no longer burdens the main operational database.

Compression, on the other hand, only optimizes the way data is stored by reducing the size of tables without changing their number. This means that the problem of excessive data volume remains unresolved – the system still has to process an increasing number of records.

For a company planning a transformation, it is crucial to have the support of a partner who understands both the technological and business context within SAP. Data archiving requires:

• knowledge of SAP business processes and objects,
• experience in configuring archiving tools,
• expertise in SAP Basis and database administration,
• hands-on experience in SAP S/4HANA migration projects.

All for One Poland combines these competencies, delivering archiving projects both as part of preparations for migration to S/4HANA and as part of optimizing the operation of SAP ECC systems. This enables us to help organizations not only “slim down” their databases, but also strategically prepare for digital transformation.

Migration to SAP S/4HANA requires organizing data that, in many organizations, has accumulated over the years, burdening systems and increasing maintenance costs. Although information is a strategic asset, its excess significantly affects both the technical and legal aspects of SAP system operations. This directly translates into risk in a future transformation project. A CIO who takes this into account in their strategy gains not only a smoother migration, but also better system performance and compliance in the long term.

With proven SAP tools and the experience of All for One Poland experts, an organization planning its transformation can regain control over data volume – without compromising access or security – ensuring that the future conversion process runs more smoothly and safely. In practice, archiving is not a cost – it is an investment in the future of the business based on SAP S/4HANA.

One of our clients – a global cosmetics corporation headquartered in France – operates a Shared Services Center in Poland that handles finance and accounting processes for the group’s companies across 17 countries in Central and Eastern Europe. As part of a historical data migration project in the SAP system for the SSC, we carried out work covering the Finance and Controlling, Materials Management, Sales and Distribution, and Warehouse Management modules. As a result of the data archiving and reorganization activities, the system database size was reduced from 23.6 TB to 7.4 TB. The compression of archived data performed in the next step reduced the database size to approximately 600 GB.