Ilm From Sap Faq

8/12/2019 Ilm From Sap Faq

1/9

9

Index of FAQs

General ILM Questions1. What is Information Lifecycle Management (ILM)?

2. What are the main components of ILM from SAP?

3. How is ILM from SAP set up and what purposes does it serve?

4. What is the difference between data management and ILM?

5. Isnt ILM just a synonym for Hierarchical or Tiered Storage Management System?

6. Is ILM a one-time event that will take care of all information issues in my system?

7. Why is it so important to understand the difference between data and information?

8. Can deletion and destruction of data be used interchangeably?

9. What is the roadmap for the ILM solution from SAP and when will it be available?

10. How can I get ILM from SAP and what does i t cost?

ILM and Traditional Data Archiving1. Our company has been using SAPs standard data archiving for years. Do we have to replace dataarchiving wi th ILM now?

2. Does ILM from SAP imply that in the foreseeable future a customer will have two storage accessmethods?

3. Is ILM from SAP available for all archiving objects?

4. What is ILM-Aware Storage?

ILM and Relationship to Other SAP and non SAP Products1. How does ILM from SAP relate or compare to Enterprise Content Management (ECM)?

2. How does the reseller agreement with OpenText fit into the picture?

3. How does ILM from SAP relate or compare to SAP Records Management?

INFORMATION LIFECYCLE

MANAGEMENT

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS


2/9


3/9

3

SAP AG 2008

Figure 1, ILM from SAP: Components and Business Scenario

4. What is the difference between data management and ILM?The two are closely related, but are not the same thing. The focus of data management is mainly cost related anddeals with reducing data volumes, regardless of the contents of that data. It involves four basic approaches for keepingdata volumes in check: prevention, aggregation, deletion, archiving. To be able to implement an ILM strategy you needa good data management strategy as a basis. The purpose of ILM is to achieve a good balance between TCO, risk,and legal compliance. So in addition to managing data volumes, ILM also manages data retention requirements,

including such things as the final destruction of information. ILM is the sum of all of these measures.

5. Isnt ILM just a synonym for Hierarchical or Tiered Storage Management System?No, at the beginning, ILM was strongly driven by the storage industry and often used as a synonym for tiered storageor Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM). This would be a very narrow definition of ILM. Although ILM is partiallymade possible through technological innovation, it is a holistic approach to managing complex relationships andrequirements on information. It is a mixture of processes, strategy, and technology, which are all used together tomanage information across its entire life cycle. Since data is commonly born in a business application, ILM should startthere, at the birthplace. Likewise, since the end of the information life cycle often takes place in a storage system, ILMshould also span this realm. ILM means from cradle to grave and from application to storage system.

6. Is ILM a one-time event that will take care of all information issues in my system?

No, ILM is an ongoing strategy and process that has to be established within a company. It can be viewed as a changein company culture, and involves all departments and areas, not just IT. Much of ILM happens outside the system andhas to do with communication between the different departments in your organization. The good news is that many ofthe processes involved in ILM are becoming more automated and are increasingly being supported by newtechnological developments offered through the new ILM solution from SAP.

7. Why is it so important to understand the difference between data and information?Data is the physical representation of information in any form. It could be a piece of paper containing information or adata unit in a computer system. Data is a technical concept (extensional), while information is an abstract notion(intentional). The importance of distinguishing between the two in the context of ILM becomes apparent when youconsider the following ideas:

Information can be stored redundantly as different data.

Disposing of data does not necessarily mean that you have lost or destroyed information.


4/9

4

SAP AG 2008

Data can only become an asset if it is interpretable.

In an ILM strategy it is not sufficient to simply delete data. You have to think about the information you want to destroyand then delete all the necessary data carrying that information. This is also key in trying to interpret legalrequirements. Often times a law will dictate that you destroy data after a certain number of years (e.g. employee data).What is really meant, though, is that you are to destroy the information about that person.

8. Can deletion and destruct ion of data be used interchangeably?No, in the context of ILM deletion and destruction are two different concepts. When we talk about the deletion of data,we mean the physical deletion of a technical unit in the system. When we talk about the final destruction of information,we mean the deletion of all data records and their references, so that certain information or its existence can never bediscovered again. For example, when data is archived, it is written to the file system and then deleted from thedatabase. It can still be accessed and viewed in its archived state. The final destruction of this information would meandeleting the archive file and all indexes on it, as well as copies of it in the system, including change documents, related

messages, etc. Final destruction may also involve the deletion of this information in the SAP NetWeaver BusinessInformation Warehouse.

9. What is the roadmap for the ILM solution from SAP and when wil l it be available?The first version of ILM from SAP will be available to ramp-up customers in mid-2008. General availability is plannedfor the end of 2008 beginning of 2009.

10. How can I get ILM from SAP and what does it cost?ILM from SAP is part of SAP NetWeaver, and the first version will be available with SAP NetWeaver EnhancementPackage 1. ILM from SAP is part of the official price list. Many of the initial ILM from SAP projects will be conductedwith the help of SAP services, such as System Landscape Optimization (SLO).To find out more about how you can become a ramp-up customer and pricing, contact your SAP account executive or

contact us [email protected].

ILM and Traditional Data Archiving1. Our company has been using SAPs standard data archiving for years. Do we have to

replace data archiving with ILM now?No, ILM is not a product that replaces data archiving. Rather, data archiving is one of the main pillars of ILM from SAP.If you have a data archiving strategy in place, you already have a very good basis for ILM. You can start from there andgradually work your way towards a full-fledged ILM strategy.

2. Does ILM from SAP imply that in the foreseeable future a customer will have two storage

access methods?ILM from SAP covers mainly the retention management of structured data, but provides a method to also handle theretention management of the related unstructured data (such as a scanned invoice directly related to a financialdocument in the application). The storage of structured data takes place using the WebDAV protocol (Figure 1) (for ageneral explanation of WebDAV see www.webdav.org).Here the structured data is moved to a hierarchy in the ILM-aware storage system via a certifiable interface (certification BC-ILM 2.0; see What is ILM-Aware Storage).
mailto:[email protected]://www.webdav.org%29./http://www.webdav.org%29./mailto:[email protected]


5/9

5

SAP AG 2008

Figure 1: ILM-Aware Storage Integration: Structured Data

Unstructured data, such as scanned documents and print lists, are still stored in a storage system using ArchiveLink.

The storage system could be one and the same central ILM-aware storage. The unstructured data linked to structuredinformation from the SAP application inherits the retention properties and metadata. This is achieved through a parallelhierarchy that is similar to that of the structured data. The parallel hierarchy contains the references to the actuallocation where the unstructured data is stored. If the storage system has ILM capabilities, then the retention propertiesand metadata can also be propagated to the unstructured data.

Figure 2: ILM-Aware Storage Integration: Unstructu red Data

3. Is ILM from SAP available for all archiving objects?The first version of ILM from SAP will be delivered with the top archiving objects (most commonly used archivingobjects, such as FI_DOCUMNT or SD_VBAK) enabled for ILM (for ramp-up certain technical restrictions may apply.Please refer to the product documentation for details). Later on other relevant archiving objects will be enabled. It will

never be necessary to enable all archiving objects for ILM, because not all of them are relevant in ILM or legalcompliance scenarios.

4. What is ILM-Aware Storage?An ILM strategy can only be complete if both the application side and the storage side are considered. Therefore, anessential part of retention management and retention warehouse at SAP is ILM-aware storage integration. ILM-awarestorage means that the storage technology is able to accept the retention constraints in the form of expiration date andlegal hold properties from a retention scenario in the application and enforce them (guarantee non-deletability) on thestored data. SAP has been working very closely together particularly with WORM-like technology partners to facilitatesuch an end-to-end scenario. It also offers a special WebDAV certification for ILM (BC-ILM 2.0), to be generallyavailable in April 2008 that verifies the ILM-awareness of the storage technology. For more information seehttps://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/iccIntegration Scenario.
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/icchttps://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/icc


6/9

6

SAP AG 2008

ILM and Relationship to Other SAP and non SAP Products1. How does ILM from SAP relate or compare to Enterprise Content Management (ECM)?According to AIIM, the definition ofECMis: the technologies used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and delivercontent and documents related to organizational processes. ECM tools and strategies allow the management of anorganization's unstructured information, wherever that information exists.

Thus, ECM deals with document management, input management, output management, records management, Webcontent management, digital asset management, e-mail management, forms management, collaboration, casemanagement, business process management, and search.

In contrast, ILM from SAPmanages the retention of primarily structured dataduring different stages of its life time,from the time the data is first created in the application until it is destroyed either in the application or usually in the

storage system. Along this process different aspects are involved, such as retention policy management, legal holds,and ensuring that the same rules continue to apply to the data, even after it has been moved to storage (ILM-awarestorage). As mentioned under What are the main components of ILM from SAP, these considerations as well as theneed for reporting, also apply to data from decommissioned systems. This is also covered by ILM from SAP throughthe retention warehouse. Within this context, unstructured data needs to also be considered, as it is often closelylinked to the structured data, for example scanned invoices, which are linked to a financial document in the SAPapplication. In this sense only, ILM from SAP also considers unstructured data. For example, unstructured data isstored in a similar hierarchy as the structured data and in this way inherits the metadata and retention properties fromits corresponding structured data.

Figure 1, ECM Components and ILM at SAP

2. How does the reseller agreement with OpenText fit into the picture?ILM from SAP and the OpenText products under the reseller agreement (SAP Archiving by OpenText and SAPDocument Access by OpenText) both provide benefits for customers, and have complimentary areas of usage.ILM from SAP deals with the retention management of structured data and system decommissioning. Open Text dealswith all aspects of managing unstructured data, including its storage.

You can implement ILM from SAP if you need to: Centrally manage your retention policies Manage the retention (life cycle) of your structured data, based on these policies Manage legal holds and e-discovery operations for structured data


7/9

7

SAP AG 2008

Decommission SAP legacy systems on an object basis, and continue to leverage the stored data for audits andreporting purposes

Automatically apply retention rules and legal holds also to the unstructured data attached to the structuredinformation

You can implement SAP Archiving by Open Text and SAP Document Access Open Text if you need to: Use comprehensive content management functions for document-centric processes, such as forms

management, imaging, scanning, document management or document access via virtual folders Store unstructured data as part of this content management solution in a hardware-agnostic and

heterogeneous environment Decommission non-SAP legacy systems using a print list-based method Store structured data that has been archived using SAPs standard data archiving functionality to any type of

Worm or Worm-like storage via ArchiveLink

Figure 1, Business Cases: ILM from SAP vs. OpenText

OpenText offers ECM and Document Management System (DMS) tools and services for managing mainlyunstructured datain an SAP environment. SAP Archiving by OpenText covers the storage of documents attached toSAP objects, including print lists, outgoing and incoming documents, desktop documents and e-mails, and mass

document input. SAP Document Access by OpenText includes process-oriented grouping of content and virtualfoldering.

Data archiving and ILM from SAP on the other hand deal primarily with structured dataand begin in the application anddatabase of the SAP system. Here the main focuses are data volume management, retention management, legal holdmanagement, e-discovery support and system decommissioning with capabilities for continued reporting and auditingon the decommissioned data. Data archiving aims at volume management and has clearly defined process steps inthe SAP world: writing structured data from already closed business processes from the database to the file system,then deleting the data from the database. Optionally, in the store phase, the archived data can be moved to a storagesystem using interfaces, such as ArchiveLink. With the new ILM solution from SAP, this archiving process has beenenriched to allow for an end-to-end ILM process. Now metadata and properties are passed along with the archiveddata to ILM-aware storage systems also through a special interface based on the WebDAV protocol. This ensures theenforcement of retention policies also on the archived data. Full-fledged ILM from SAP will be possible with ILM-aware

storage technology (see What is ILM-aware storage?). WORM-like magnetic disc storage, such as EMC Centera,


8/9

8

SAP AG 2008

IBM DR550, HP IAP, NetApp SnapLock, or HDS HCAP is best suited for being ILM-aware, due to the high securityrequirements. Open Text has mentioned that they plan to support the new ILM-enhanced WebDAV interface.

In the OpenText world, the term archivingis synonymous with storage. To be able to handle the storage ofdocuments, as well as ADK files, in an SAP environment, OpenText has obtained the ArchiveLink certification.ArchiveLink is the interface between SAP and storage products, particularly for unstructured data (but also ADK files).Since OpenText supports the ArchiveLink interface its products can be leveraged for secure long-term archiving ofstandard data archive files in a hardware-agnostic way. OpenText also plans to obtain the BC-ILM 2.0 certification inthe future.

Neither ILM from SAP nor Open Text solutions are necessary for each other. Both have complimentary areas of usage.Both can be implemented in parallel, depending on the needs of the customer.

3. How does ILM from SAP relate or compare to SAP Records Management?

In the area of records management SAP offers SAP Records Management (SAP RM), and SAP Public Sector RecordsManagement (SAP PSRM). The latter is based on SAP RM and delivers functionality and certification to the mostimportant records management standards in the public sector but also applied in the non-public sector like DoD5015.2 (US), TNA (UK) and DOMEA (Germany). Both records management products are shipped with SAPNetWeaver.

Both products offer records, case and document management capabilities. They also offer a technical framework tointegrate any information objects such as links to SAP business objects in cases and records. The usage of the termrecords management in the industry is different than the original usage of the word in the product naming for SAP RM.Figure 1 lists the scope of functionality included in SAP RM.

SAP AG 2005, ESA Roadmap for Records and Case Management/ A.Engel/ 3

Scope of Records Management

With Records Management all information can be stored as record which

is declared as record or automatic recognized as (legal) record; Records

Management is only about storing of information in a certain way, not

about processing information

Records Managements supports automatic or manual classification

(through meta data, fileplan, keyword, full text classif ication) of records

Records Management supports access control to all records stored in

Records Management

Records Management supports audit trail of all records in Records

Management

Records Management supports the disposal process of all records in

Records Management

Records Management does not support case processing or any type of

Workflow: I.e. Approval procesing for outgoing mail is part of CaseManagement but not of Records Management

Figure 1, Usage of Records Management ou tside of SAP

Records Management is only concerned with the storing and retaining of information, but not with driving the businessprocess. One way to drive the business process could be to use Case Management.The following SAP applications use SAP RM:

- SAP Dispute Management in SAP ERP- SAP CRM Case Management in SAP CRM- SAP MIC (SOX compliance) in SAP ERP- SAP Government Procurement


9/9

9

SAP AG 2008

- SAP Grants Management

Important to note, is that a records management system contains copies of structured and unstructured data, wherethe structured data is stored in the form of xml. In other words, data is stored redundantly.

ILM from SAP offers a legal case management function, which has been developed using SAP Records and CaseManagement. Legal case management is used for legal hold management and e-discovery support. If, for example,your company is being sued and you are requested to freeze and provide all data involved in the lawsuit, you cancreate a corresponding case for the matter in Legal Case Management. You can then use special reports to search forall electronic data (in the database and in the archive) involved in the case and include references to this data in thecase you created. Note that here data is not kept redundantly, because only the references to the data are included inthe case. You can then place a legal hold on the required business objects based on the references.

Ilm From Sap Faq

Documents

Transcript of Ilm From Sap Faq