For more than 20 years a global food‑processing cooperative stored almost every transaction and document that passed through its SAP landscape. The production ECC database eventually grew to around 25TB, nudging the technical tablespace ceiling. A short burst of housekeeping bought roughly a year of breathing room, yet everyone recognised that a more future-proof solution was needed SAP ECC archiving.
The challenge
Forecasts showed that, without intervention, the database would reach its maximum size within 12 to 15 months, threatening finance, supply‑chain and manufacturing operations. Although the situation was urgent, it also created an opportunity to refresh information‑governance practices and improve everyday performance.
Objectives
Proceed and the team agreed on two guiding goals. First, they would reduce the live database by setting up a clear data management strategy including SAP ECC archiving or deleting information that fell outside the company’s seven‑ to ten‑year retention window. Second, they would move attachments into a dedicated content repository so those items no longer occupied valuable space inside the core database while remaining easy to retrieve when required.
Scope of the data management strategy
The data management strategy includes achieving the quick wins (by targeting low hanging fruits) such as performing detailed housekeeping jobs including removing logs and un-necessary technical data from SAP system which doesn’t require a detailed business process approvals.
Subsequently archiving business-relevant historical data on various stages by following the business process and dependencies.
Content management
At the same time SAP Content Server was introduced and tables holding attachments from SAP Office and the document‑management system were migrated, ensuring future growth would sit outside the main database.
Delivery approach
Stages 1 to 3, completed in the final quarter of 2023, covered analysis, refinement of retention rules with finance and compliance colleagues, and a pilot archive in a non‑production system to prove the restore process.
Stages 4 to 7, carried out during the first quarter of 2024, moved the work into production. Archiving jobs were scheduled in carefully planned waves that respected business cut‑off times, and regular briefings kept stakeholders informed about progress and any data that would no longer be searchable in the live system.
The results
The analysis revealed up to 16TB of data that could be taken out of the live system. By the end of stage 7 the team had already trimmed more than 14 TB, bringing the database down from 25 TB to about 11 TB and removing the immediate risk of hitting the technical limit.
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If your organisation is wrestling with unchecked SAP data growth and would like to create similar breathing space, we would be delighted to share the practical details behind this success. Feel free to get in touch so we can explore how a tailored archiving and content‑management approach could keep your ERP running smoothly while laying the groundwork for future growth.
