How should I plan for my 1st initial archive?
When it comes to archiving your Dynamics GP data, timing is everything. First and foremost, you’ll want to plan your initial or first archive. If it is your first-time archiving with Company Data Archive (CDA), you’ll most likely have many years of data to archive.
Attempting to archive every year of data, across all modules, all at one time, will very likely take days to accomplish. It is best to split this initial archive into several pieces. Utilize the Data Distribution and Size window to help gauge how long it takes to archive different amounts of data. For some modules, you will be able to archive a year or more at one time. Other modules will be larger, and you may only want to archive six months at a time. For modules with less activity, you will be able to archive more than one module at a time.This initial “catch up” archive may take you several evenings or weekends to accomplish. After that, archiving does not need to be done every day. Based on your initial archive experience, you will develop a feel for how often you need to archive the various modules.
How often should I be archiving my data after my initial archive?
Most companies using CDA perform an annual, semi-annual, or monthly archive, depending on how much data is accumulating in their ‘live production’ company. In this perspective, utilizing the CDA Data Distribution and Size window can help determine how often your company should archive. At the very least, we recommend archiving your data once a year.
One nice feature about Company Data Archive, is that after you perform your initial archive, you can keep archiving data to the same ‘archive’ company overtime. That way, your historical data is located in one spot.
Upgrading your GP environment?
If you plan on upgrading your GP environment in the near future, we recommend archiving your data before performing that upgrade. Archiving your data before your GP upgrade will result in shrinking your ‘live’ database, which will result in a faster GP upgrade, leaving you the option to upgrade your historical database at your leisure or down time.
What happens during a live archive session?
While performing an archive, you’ll have the option to “pause” and “resume” an archive. Since you can pause and resume the archive, it is unimportant to finish the archive for a cutoff date in one session. For example, you could start an archive Friday afternoon, pause that archive when your return to work on Monday morning, and resume the archive the following Friday – the archive will pick up from where it previously left off. When you pause an archive, it finishes archiving the current customer or vendor, and then stops. You can repeat these steps until your archive is finished.
