Data Management Overview
This section provides a short overview of topics explained further for data management.
The sections on PeopleSoft Data Mover are shifted to the Application Life Cycle Management book. For related information to the Data Mover see, Lifecycle Management Guide.
In any enterprise application, the ability to purge and archive transactional data is critical to data management. You need to have consistent methods to archive transactional data before your database increases to unmanageable sizes. PeopleSoft Data Archive Manager provides an integrated and consistent framework for archiving data from PeopleSoft applications.
Using a predefined template, you can select any queries and multiple objects that meet your archiving requirements. Leveraging the Archive Query in PeopleSoft Query, you can easily define your archive template. To better manage the archive process, you don't have to make any commits to the database until the entire batch has completed.
Note: PeopleSoft Data Archive Manager replaces a desupported feature (Archive Data) used in PeopleSoft 8.40 through 8.43.
PeopleSoft provides several features to ensure the integrity of the data that is stored in your PeopleSoft system.
Data Integrity Tools
You might want to use the provided data integrity tools during upgrades and system customizations, to verify the PeopleSoft system and check how it compares to the actual SQL objects. The data integrity tools are:
SQL Alter.
The primary purpose of the Application Designer SQL Alter function is to bring SQL tables into accordance with PeopleTools record definitions. You can run SQL Alter in an audit-only mode that alerts you to discrepancies between record definitions and SQL tables, but that doesn't actually perform an alter.
DDDAUDIT.
The Database Audit Report (DDDAUDIT) finds inconsistencies between PeopleTools record and index definitions and the database objects.
SYSAUDIT.
The System Audit (SYSAUDIT) identifies orphaned PeopleSoft objects and other inconsistencies within the system. An example of an orphaned object is a module of PeopleCode that exists, but which does not relate to any other objects in the system. You can use SYSAUDIT to audit a variety of different aspects of your PeopleSoft system.
Trigger-Based Database Level Auditing
PeopleSoft provides trigger-based auditing functionality as an alternative to the record-based auditing that Application Designer provides. Some countries require that you audit changes to certain data, while some companies audit who is making changes to sensitive data. This level of auditing is not only for maintaining the integrity of the data, but it is also a heightened security measure. PeopleSoft takes advantage of database triggers (offered by most database vendors), and when a user makes a change to a specified field that you are monitoring, the changed data triggers the audit.
The information that a trigger records could include the user that made a change, the type of change that is made, when the change is made, and so on.
PeopleSoft provides a framework for defining and retrieving application data diagnostics within the PeopleSoft Internet Architecture (PIA) environment. Diagnostics Framework retrieves diagnostic information from a PeopleSoft database. With this diagnostic information, you can:
Discover problematic application-related data.
Explore setup details.
Present information to PeopleSoft support in a common format.
Using Diagnostics Framework, you can perform diagnostic tests on your system with minimal instructions from the PeopleSoft Support team. These tests answer application-specific questions to help development and user support teams diagnose and troubleshoot any problems that you may be experiencing.
The tests can request additional parameters to tailor the diagnostics to your situation. They output HTML pages that you can open using any PeopleSoft-supported browser, and XML documents containing the same information in a form suitable for programmatic processing. You can email the HTML or XML documents to an application expert.
PeopleSoft supports a wide range of database platforms. Because each relational database management system (RDBMS) implements certain capabilities in a unique manner, there are some differences in the way you administer them. This documentation includes topics that provide specific guidelines for administering the following supported platforms:
Microsoft SQL Server.
Db2 for z/OS.
Oracle.