SvalTech
We Make Database Archiving Work For You

 

         Everything You Need to Establish a Database Archiving Practice

 

 

                   

               

Education and Organization

Executive Seminar
This one day seminar targets IT and Business Unit executives, directors and managers.  Senior technical staff may also be interested in participating. The purpose is to provide a thorough grounding in Database Archiving principles. The seminar covers definitions, the problems that can be addressed through database archiving, the expected value of using Database Archiving, the tools and vendors available, organizational issues, and implementation requirements. It will give examples of successful as well as unsuccessful implementations. It will show how Database Archiving can help achieve the goals of strategic IT initiatives.

The seminar is 6 hours in length and is presented in one day. It can be delivered at the user site through contract or participants can enroll in open sessions delivered periodically by SvalTech.
   
Database Archiving Practice Organization Workshop
This is an open workshop designed to assist an IT organization in establishing a Database Archiving Practice. Participants include representatives from various organizations that have a stake in the success of Database Archiving. This includes representatives from IT, User groups representing key applications, corporate records retention, legal, security administration, storage administration, and possibly others. The workshop covers a short presentation on database archiving technology followed by work sessions on the scope of application coverage, staffing requirements, training requirements, reporting requirements, organizational positioning, and ongoing support. It identifies all stakeholders and outlines their role in defining, implementing, and operating archiving applications.

The outcome of the workshop will be a sound organizational plan.

This workshop is normally conducted in 2 days on the user site. However, the contract with the user can call for flexibility in how it is delivered.
   
Database Archiving Application Design and Development Class
This class is given to technical staff who either have been or plan to be working as a Database Archivist. The course covers the steps required to implement a Database Archiving application. This includes segments on Database Archiving methodology, source database modeling, archive data modeling, extract design, archive storage design issues, security design issues, archive maintenance issues, and archive access.

A student should have experience as a database administrator, data modeler, data architect, or similar function. A working knowledge of SQL is required.

The class is 3 days in length. It can be delivered at the user site through contract or participants can enroll in open sessions delivered periodically by SvalTech.

   
Database Archive Administration Class
This class is given to technical staff who either are or plan to be assigned as a Database Archive Administrator. The course covers the basics of Database Archiving and the functions performed to administer a database archive over time. This includes segments on establishing and documenting requirements, setting of policies, setting up and operating periodic archive events, managing data model changes, authorizing access to archive data, administering storage rules, and controlling access. It also covers the requirements for documentation, periodic testing, periodic audits, and metric management.

A student should have experience as an administrator in some IT administration function such as security administration, storage administration, data steward, IT compliance office or IT Data Governance office.

This class is 3 days in length. It can be delivered at the user site through contract or participants can enroll in open sessions delivered periodically by SvalTech.
   

Planning and Implementation

Database Archiving Application Survey
The Survey is a consulting engagement where SvalTech guides the client’s team through a process of evaluating applications for potential value from using Database Archiving. Based on data collected by the user’s team, the process eliminates applications with little or no potential value. For those with value, the process will produce an estimated cost benefit plus identify other factors that favor archiving. The last part of the process is prioritizing applications for implementation.

This is an ideal way to get started with a new Database Archiving practice. It is also a useful process to repeat in subsequent years to ensure that the highest potential value applications are identified and sized.

This engagement will vary in length due to many factors such as scope of applications considered, participation of user staff, availability of data, and others.  The SvalTech leader may not be present continuously throughout the process but rather will give assignments for data gathering and then return later when this is done for evaluation. Most surveys will last between 1 to 4 weeks.

   

Database Archiving Application Design
The Application Design engagement is used to design the Database Archiving implementation for a single application. The SvalTech consultant will work with the user staff to create a complete design of data models, archiving policies, data transformations, extract processes, storage processes and access routines. The user can use this as a mentoring process to help train their own Database Archivist on the design process through implementing a real application.

This engagement is executed under a contract executed between SvalTech and the user. The length is dependent on many factors.

It may be helpful for the user to contract with SvalTech to perform this task for a basket of applications that are retired. By having SvalTech do the entire task, the user does not need to commit their own staff to the effort.
   

Database Archiving Application Implementation
The Application Implementation engagement is used to put a design into operation and test it out. Implementation will include specifying all necessary inputs to a Database Archiving software tool such as Chronos, building any customized extract processes that may be needed, building any necessary archive access routines, and setting up the storage parameters for storage subsystems. Testing will include dry runs that test the extract, storage and access routines. Performance measurements may also be included in the process.
This may also be used as a mentoring process to assist in the training of the user’s Database Archivist and Archive Administrator.

It may be helpful for the user to contract with SvalTech to perform this task for a basket of applications that are retired. By having SvalTech do the entire task, the user does not need to commit their own staff to the effort.
   

Software

Chronos Database Archiving Software
The Chronos Database Archiving software is a complete package providing everything that is needed for most applications. It provides a user interface GUI for specifying information about the applications and for administration of an application’s archive once implemented. Chronos will extract data based on user policy from most relational databases, will transform the extracted data into a form more suitable for archiving and store the archive data packages on storage devices as directed by the user.

Chronos provides a complete SQL implementation for accessing the archive data without returning it to a relational database. This can be used to extract subsets that can be easily loaded into relational databases if needed. The SQL engine of Chronos can perform metadata resolution to archive packages that are stored with variations of the metadata for the application between them that result from metadata changes to the operational application.