Scenario: Archiving data

Sharon Jones, the system administrator at the JKL Toy Company, wants to archive older data currently stored on one of the systems to media. You can use this example to plan and configure archive control groups using BRMS.

Situation

The JKL Toy Company stores large monthly sales invoices in an Accounts database on its JKLPROD system. Unfortunately these records have been kept on the system for several years and the large volume of data is negatively affecting the performance of the application. JKL wants to archive any records that are older than two years. For this older data, the company wants to save it off the system to media, but ensure that it can be accessed, if necessary. Although this data is not current, employees occasionally need to access payment histories and other account information for these accounts. Users typically respond to a customer inquiries about this data, such as validating payment or addresses. Accounts that have a history shorter than two years are considered active. Data in these accounts are updated regularly and are saved as part of the backup control group for JKLPROD system.

For data that is older than two years, the company would like to save it to media but retain it in case it is needed. Using the BRMS archive function, Sharon plans to save these monthly sales records to write once, read many (WORM) media and set criteria on what objects are saved. Sharon plans to create an archive control group for this data.

Objectives

JKL Toy Company has the following objectives for this scenario:
  1. To improve application performance by removing older data from the system.
  2. To allow the access to data that has been archived.

Prerequisites and assumptions

This scenario assumes that several prerequisite steps have been completed and tested before beginning any steps. These prerequisites are assumed to have been completed for this scenario:

Ensure that the following requirements have been installed on your system:
  • IBM® i Version 5 Release 4 (5722-SS1), or later
  • Media and Storage Extensions (5761-SS1 Option 18)
  • Backup, Recovery, and Media Services (5761-BR1 *BASE)
  • BRMS -- Network feature (5761-BR1 Option 1)
  • BRMS -- Advanced feature (5761-BR1 Option 2)
  • IBM i Access for Windows (5761-XE1) and System i® Navigator
  • The latest PTFs
Ensure that the requirements have been installed on the client:
  • IBM i Access for Windows and System i Navigator
  • BRMS System i Navigator plug-in
Ensure that these planning tasks have been completed:
  • All backup and recovery planning has been conducted and documented.
  • All storage planning has been conducted and documented.

Configuration details

  1. Preparing media
    Sharon needs to define write once, read many (WORM) with BRMS to save information that she wants to archive.
  2. Adding media
    To store her archived data, Sharon Jones needs to add media to the system.
  3. Creating archive control group for older data
    Sharon Jones also decided to create a new archive control group for older data.
  4. Viewing archive control group report
    Sharon Jones wants to ensure that the properties for the archive control group are correct. She uses BRMS to create a report that she can view and validate the archive control group that she just created.
  5. Scheduling archive control group
    After creating and testing her archive control group, Sharon now is ready to schedule the control groups to run.
Parent topic: Scenarios: How one company uses BRMS