Archive Outline

Important:

It is the position of RFMS that the practice of archiving—when the process includes purging old data—is not necessary and may expose your data integrity to certain risks.

Purging data can lead to unforeseen consequences. For example, if a cutoff date is specified, such as 2015, and the purge is executed, it may later be discovered—after restoration is no longer an option—that two old orders from 2015 were not purged due to receipts or various other date-related components. Additionally, purging can create complications with inventory and the recreation of records.

Given the current hardware offerings, concerns regarding disk space should not be an issue. We recommend that you consider increasing hardware capacity to accommodate data growth rather than resorting to archiving with purging.

RFMS Hosted clients - Please be advised that RFMS does not support or conduct archiving or purging processes for subscription/hosted clients.

This document is to assist your IT Professional in making an Archive of your Current RFMS SQL Database.  This document contains the steps required for your IT Professional to complete this process.  It is imperative that no one be in RFMS while this is being done and that you have a good backup of your RFMS Folder and database prior to performing this document.  Failure to perform this document correctly can result in a corrupt RFMS Database and/or loss of data. Proceed with caution.

Note:  Archiving a SQL Database essentially puts two SQL Databases on your Server.  This means that SQL will utilize more memory than was being originally utilized.  Make sure that you have enough memory to support this operation.  If running SQL Express, the limit for the SQL Databases would be 1 GB Total.

1. Make sure everyone is out of RFMS.
   
   
2. Obtain the fully qualified SQL Server Name. This is located at the bottom of the RFMS Navigator in format of Server Name – Database Name.
   
   
3. At the Server, backup your RFMS Database and move to the New Server / Location (see Manual Backup of SQL Database Section of SQL RFMS – Manual DB Backup and Restore Document).

4. Restore the backup made in step 3 (see Manual Restore of SQL Database Section of SQL RFMS – Manual DB Backup and Restore Document).
   IMPORTANT:  When doing step 4, make sure to input a database name that is different than your existing RFMS database, such as RFMS-Archive.

5. Make a copy of the RFMS folder and place this in another area on the server or move to New Server (separate from the Real RFMS Folder). Give the folder copy the same name as the database name, such as RFMS-Archive.
   Note:  If moving the database to a different Server, this will be similar to migrating your RFMS. See instructions here: Migration Documents Package

6. Set up sharing and permissions on the Archive Folder for those that need access to this folder.

7. Rename the dbconnect.tps and dbconnect.xml ( if present ) within the Archive folder.

8. Create an icon pointing to the RFMSNav.exe inside the Archive Folder and launch to test. When prompted for the Server and Database Name, use the Server Name from step 2 and the database name that you created in step 4. Make sure Archive RFMS is Archive DB and Real RFMS is the Real DB.