A guide to SAP data archiving

If you are heading for S/4HANA or Cloud ERP, the bit that usually causes the most noise is not the shiny new system. It is the data. There is lots of it, it touches every process, and it has a habit of making projects slower and more expensive than they need to be. Archiving is one of those practical steps that brings the temperature down. You keep the history the business still needs, and your live system stops carrying twenty years of baggage.

Let’s walk through what archiving actually is, how SAP Information Lifecycle Management (SAP ILM) fits in, where it helps on brownfield and greenfield paths, and what to watch for with compliance and access to history.

What is SAP data archiving

Think of it as tidying the cupboards, not throwing anything away. In SAP, we separate records that are business complete from the day to day working set. Those complete records are moved out of the primary database into an archive store that is secure, organised, and still reachable.

Finance can answer an audit query. Customer service can check an old invoice. HR can evidence an employment record. The difference is your live system is not lugging all of that around while people are trying to work.

Under the bonnet this is handled with SAP ILM and the standard archiving objects for each module. The jargon is less important than the outcome. Smaller tables, shorter batch windows, and a calmer system with history available when someone needs it.

Why organisations archive SAP data

Four themes come up in most conversations.

• Lower run costs: When people first consider an archiving project, the most obvious motivation is cost. A smaller database means lower storage and compute costs — not just in production but across the entire landscape: development, quality, and disaster recovery too. Those savings are ongoing, not one-time.
• Performance and project headroom: Archiving also helps reduce the strain on your systems, improving performance and shortening processing times. Jobs that used to run overnight can complete in hours, and migration projects that once seemed daunting become far more manageable.
• Compliance and risk: By applying retention rules and managing data consistently, you can ensure information is kept only for as long as it’s needed — and deleted safely when it’s not. It’s a cleaner, more defensible position, especially when regulators or auditors come calling.
• Migration readiness: For organisations preparing to move to S/4HANA or a hyperscaler environment, archiving is often the single most effective way to reduce migration complexity. The less data you carry forward, the quicker and smoother the move.

Where SAP archiving fits in typical transformation paths

• Brownfield to S/4HANA: You keep your system and upgrade the core. Archive older, business complete history first, migrate the working set, then reattach the archives so people can still reach what they need from S/4HANA. You reduce risk and give the project room to breathe.
• Greenfield to S/4HANA: You start fresh with a redesigned model. Extract history from ECC into an ILM retention warehouse and provide read access for audit and enquiries. No one is rebuilding decades of transactions, and no one loses the ability to answer questions about the past.
• Move to a hyperscaler: On a consumption model every terabyte shows up somewhere on the bill. That is production, DR, QA and dev. Compress the cold stuff and keep the hot path light. You can still present archived history back to ECC or S/4HANA for a seamless user experience.
• New to SAP: Set the tone early. Keep hot data close for daily work, park warm data sensibly, and archive cold history on a clear cycle. Growth stays under control and you avoid expensive surprises.

The business case for SAP data archiving

When you look at the business case, archiving usually pays for itself quickly.

Step 1 – Current state cost:

Size by system and instance. Compute, storage, backup, HA and DR. Licences and support for database, operating system and backup tools. Space, power and cooling if relevant. Growth assumptions. Put an annual run cost and a three to five year TCO on it.

Step 2 – Target state with archiving:

Project effort and services. Archive storage or service consumption. Adjusted compute, storage, backup, HA and DR. Same growth assumptions. Put an annual run cost and TCO on that as well.

Step 3 – Calculate the savings!

Net saving per year, one-off cost and payback. Add a quick sensitivity check for growth rates and storage tiers so the model still holds if something shifts.

How to SAP archiving actually works

A successful archiving project starts with understanding both the technical and business perspectives.

The technical view: What data sits where, how old it is, which archiving objects apply for FI, CO, SD, MM, PP, PM, HCM, CRM, SRM, BW and any industry add-ons. What is blocked by open items or odd statuses that needs housekeeping before it can move. How people will reach the archive when it is done.

The business view: Who needs which reports and why. What retention rules apply by country and module. Which data classes might need legal hold. What response times are acceptable when someone looks up history. Who signs off decisions.

A short blueprint pulls this together. It names the first objects to run, the volumes to expect, the closure tasks that clear the way, the retention rules, and the access route for users and auditors. Everyone sees the same picture before anything starts.

What is SAP ILM

ILM started life as classic data archiving to reduce database size. It grew to cover retention management, system end-of-life, and landscape harmonisation. In practice that means three pillars working together.

• Data archiving to move business complete data out of the live database into compliant storage.
• Retention management to keep data for the right amount of time and then destroy it in a controlled way, with legal hold where required.
• System decommissioning to retire old SAP and non-SAP systems into a single, governed solution so you are not paying to keep legacy stacks on life support.

One point that is often missed. SAP ILM packages related data so referential integrity is preserved. If material documents need the underlying referential data to be meaningful in ten years, ILM will hold what is needed for as long as the longest retention rule requires. That is how you stay audit-ready without trying to explain half a record.

Accessing archived data

Archiving is not putting things in a box and hoping for the best. You have options.

• Read directly from ECC or S/4HANA through standard archive-enabled transactions and queries.
• Use a retention warehouse to preserve original schema for reporting after an ECC system is retired.
• Provide simple, documented routes for users and auditors so they can self-serve.

Show people a couple of real examples in a test system. It changes the conversation from worry to “fine, that works”.

Compliance and data protection in SAP data archiving

Two areas come up most.

• HR data: SAP ILM lets you clean up specific infotypes you no longer need to hold, such as very old address history for active employees, and it supports a controlled two-step deletion process for leavers. You can place a legal hold on a personnel number if there is a case in progress, which overrides retention so nothing disappears at the wrong time. The result is a cleaner, more compliant HR footprint.
• Customer and vendor data: For business partner data you can block and delete. Blocking makes personal data invisible to standard users once the business purpose has ended and the residence time has elapsed. Only users with specific ILM authorisations can view blocked data. After the retention period expires, data is deleted so it cannot be retrieved. You can layer access so auditors see more than end users, and managers see more than casual users. It is practical and it stands up when someone asks you to explain it.

The golden rule that sits underneath all of this. Archive only what is business complete, follow dependencies in the right order, and agree retention with legal and audit at the start. It saves weeks later.

Unstructured documents and OpenText Extended ECM

Structured SAP data is only half the picture. There are emails, PDFs, contracts, images and scans that sit around the process. Extended ECM ties the two together so people can see the documents they expect when they are working in SAP, and SAP context when they are looking at a workspace in SharePoint or Extended ECM. Classification, access control, retention, legal hold and proper destruction all apply here as well. Same rules, same audit trail, fewer surprises.

Common SAP data archiving pitfalls and how to avoid them

• Skipping housekeeping: Open items and incomplete documents block archiving. Plan a short closure sprint first. You will get a higher percentage through on day one.
• Fuzzy access plans: If users cannot see how they will reach history, they will stall the project. Show them. A couple of familiar reports makes a big difference.
• Policy overload: Hundreds of micro rules create effort without benefit. Start broad, add detail only where a regulation demands it.
• Treating it as a one-off: Put archiving on a schedule. Monthly or quarterly runs keep growth flat and stop you ending up back where you started.
• Leaving compliance to the end: Bring legal, audit and data protection in early. Agree retention, legal hold and evidence. Capture decisions so you are not hunting for approvals at the last minute.

Getting started with SAP data archiving

1. Baseline the data to spot volumes, quick wins and blockers.
2. Run a policy workshop to agree residence and retention by country and module, and how legal hold will work.
3. Pick a first wave that gives a visible size reduction with low risk.
4. Sort access so users and auditors know exactly how to reach history.
5. Run, measure, repeat and fold lessons into the next wave. The aim is calm and steady, not heroic.

Proceed works with organisations to help them manage SAP data more effectively, whether that’s through archiving, using SAP ILM, or retiring legacy systems with SAP ILM or Proceed Cella. The approach is hands-on and collaborative, focusing on what each function needs to achieve as well as what IT needs to deliver.

An initial assessment can help establish where the data sits today, how fast it’s growing, and where quick wins might be. From there, it’s easier to map a phased plan that reduces risk and effort ahead of larger changes such as S/4HANA or cloud migration.

Over the years, the team has built a number of practical tools that help projects move faster and avoid common hurdles – for example, clearing open items.

If you’d like to discuss your current landscape or compare approaches with others who’ve faced similar challenges, we’re happy to share what’s worked in practice.