In SAP HANA, Data Aging is different to Archiving in the sense that cold data is still kept within the SAP HANA Database and remains accessible via SQL in the very same table as the hot data (yet in another partition). Whereas archived data – strictly read-only – is written to an archive file and deleted from the database and needs additional access paths (address information or archive indexes) to be read. Aging targets the main memory footprint reduction whereas archiving is the basis for ILM, covering the full life cycle up to the destruction of information.
Data Aging offers you the option of moving operationally less relevant data within a database so as to gain more working memory. You use the relevant SAP applications, particularly data aging objects to move data from the current area to the historical area. The move influences the visibility when data is accessed. This also means that you can perform queries of large amounts of data in current area in a shorter time. To be able to apply Data Aging to your data, you need to fulfill certain requirements regarding the database and the application.
Data Archiving is used to remove data from the database and store it outside in a consistent and secure manner. The archived data is stored in a file system and from there can be moved to other, more cost-efficient and long-term storage system.