active archiving

active archiving

Moving data to a secondary storage medium that can be readily accessed if required. Active archiving enhances the performance of production databases by eliminating records that are not accessed daily, but may be needed for reference from time to time. However, unlike traditional archiving and HSM programs that deal with entire files, data that has been actively archived can be quickly accessed or restored one record at a time. In addition, the referential integrity of the data are maintained, which means the proper relationships between the records still exist (customer to orders, vendor to purchases, etc.). In 2001, Princeton Softech, Inc. introduced the technology and was later acquired by IBM. See HSM, MAID and archive.

Active Archiving vs. HSM
Active archiving provides selective retrieval of records that may need to be referenced in the future. HSM deals with entire files and slow retrieval. (Illustration assistance courtesy of Princeton Softech, an IBM company, www.princetonsoftech.com)