Data Archiving & Reduction
Less data means faster migration, lower costs, and better performance. Strategic archiving before transition is one of the highest-ROI activities you can do.
typical reduction achievable
conversion downtime
HANA licensing costs
system performance
Why Data Archiving Matters for S/4HANA
Every terabyte of data you migrate to S/4HANA costs time and money. Conversion downtime is directly proportional to data volume. HANA licensing is often based on database size. System performance depends on keeping data lean.
Yet many organisations approach S/4HANA transition with databases bloated by years of accumulated history, test data, and never-cleaned transactional records. This makes migrations slower, more expensive, and riskier than they need to be.
Strategic archiving before transition—ideally 6-12 months before—can reduce your data footprint by 30-50%, directly translating to faster migrations and lower costs.
Quick Win
Even basic archiving of closed financial documents and old change documents can reduce database size by 20-30% with minimal risk.
Last Updated
January 15, 2026
Sources
- •SAP Data Archiving Guide
- •SAP ILM Documentation
Information based on publicly available SAP documentation and industry sources. For the latest details, consult SAP official materials or qualified partners.
Benefits of Pre-Migration Archiving
Shorter Downtime
Less data = faster technical conversion. Each TB reduction can save hours of downtime.
Lower Costs
HANA licensing often based on DB size. Smaller footprint = lower annual fees.
Better Performance
Leaner tables mean faster queries, reports, and batch jobs post-migration.
Reduced Risk
Less data to migrate means fewer things that can go wrong during cutover.
What to Archive
High-Value Archiving Targets
Financial Documents (FI)
Closed fiscal years, cleared items older than retention period
Change Documents
CDHDR/CDPOS tables—often 20%+ of database
Completed Sales/Purchase Orders
Orders older than 3-5 years with no open items
Production Orders
Closed/settled orders beyond retention
Spool & Job Logs
Historical job logs, spool requests, application logs
!Archive with Caution
Master Data
Only truly obsolete records—verify no references
Material Documents
Check inventory valuation and costing dependencies
Controlling Documents
Ensure cost object settlement is complete
Custom Tables
Understand dependencies before archiving Z* data
Archiving Approach
Analyse
2-4 weeks
- •Run database size analysis by table
- •Identify top 50 tables by size
- •Map tables to archiving objects
- •Document retention requirements by data type
Plan
2-3 weeks
- •Define archiving scope and targets
- •Establish retention policies with business
- •Plan archive storage (file system, content server)
- •Schedule archiving runs to avoid peak times
Execute
2-6 months
- •Configure archiving objects
- •Run test archiving in sandbox
- •Execute production archiving in waves
- •Monitor and validate each wave
Validate
Ongoing
- •Verify data accessibility from archive
- •Test reload capability
- •Confirm reporting still functions
- •Document for audit trail
Archiving Tools
SAP-Native Tools
SAP Data Archiving (SARA)
Standard archiving transaction with pre-built objects
SAP ILM (Information Lifecycle Management)
Policy-based retention and destruction
SAP HANA Native Storage Extension
Warm/cold data tiering within HANA
Third-Party Tools
OpenText
Archive Server and extended ECM integration
PBS Software
Archive solutions with nearline storage
Dolphin
Data volume management and archiving
When to Archive
Timing relative to your S/4HANA transition
12 Months Before
Start analysis and planning. Define retention policies.
9 Months Before
Begin archiving high-volume, low-risk objects (logs, change docs).
6 Months Before
Archive financial documents, completed orders. Major reduction phase.
3 Months Before
Final archiving wave. Validate accessibility. Freeze new archiving.
Conversion
Migrate with optimized database size.