Live Archive - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Anubhav P · yesterday

Live Archive FAQ

Answers to the questions we hear most often about Live Archive, the object-storage archiving capability in RaptorDB Professional.

If you're setting this up for the first time, start with Getting started with data archiving — this FAQ assumes you're already familiar with the basics of archive rules and are looking for answers to specific questions.

Getting started & availability

Is Live Archive available on RaptorDB Standard?

No. Live Archive — archiving to object storage — is exclusive to RaptorDB Professional. RaptorDB Standard (and any instance without RaptorDB Professional) uses System Archive instead, which moves records into ar_* tables within the same database. System Archive improves live-table query performance but doesn't reduce your primary storage footprint the way Live Archive does.

Does Live Archive turn on automatically when I upgrade?

No. You need to install the Live Archive plugin (com.glide.db.columnar.archive) yourself — it isn't enabled automatically as part of a platform upgrade.

What do I need before I install it?

RaptorDB Professional, the Australia release or later (RaptorDB Professional 35.1+), and the admin role.

I already have archive rules set up under System Archive. Do I need to rebuild them?

No. Your existing archive rules, reports, and UI configuration carry over automatically once Live Archive is enabled — there's no rule recreation or manual data migration required.

How it works

Does Live Archive use table partitioning?

No. Archived records move into separate ar_* archive tables — this is a different table, not a partition of the original. If you need to query live and archived data together, you write a UNION across the live table and its ar_* counterpart.

Can I query archived data without restoring it first?

Yes. Archived data stays fully queryable in place — you don't need to restore or "rehydrate" records to run a report or an ad hoc query against them.

Do GlideRecord queries, reports, or Performance Analytics automatically include archived records alongside live ones?

No. A query against a live table doesn't automatically pull in its archive counterpart — you need an explicit UNION between the live table and the ar_* table to span both. Reports that are already configured this way will keep working as-is after you move to Live Archive.

Is archived data available to AI Search and other LLM-based features?

Yes. Archive tables look and behave like any other table in your instance, so features like AI Search can access them the same way they access primary data.

Are attachments on archived records also moved to object storage?

Yes. When a record is archived, its attachments move with it and are restored alongside the record if it's ever restored.

Archive rules & policy

How do I control what actually gets archived?

Through archive rules — condition-based criteria you define per table, typically time-based (for example, "Closed more than 150 days ago"). A single table can have multiple rules to support different retention needs, and once a rule is active it runs automatically on a schedule (every 60 minutes by default) — no manual trigger required.

Can I see what a rule is going to archive before it runs?

Yes — use the Record Estimate action on the archive rule to get an estimated count of matching records before the next run.

Which tables can't be archived?

sys_audit and its variants, sys_attachment, sys_journal_field, and a small set of other system tables. You don't need a separate rule for attachments or journal entries — they archive automatically with their parent record. For CMDB data, use CMDB Data Manager rather than a standard archive rule.

Restore & data lifecycle

Archived data is immutable — how do I actually change a record once it's archived?

Restore it to primary, make your edit, and it automatically re-archives per your existing rules (this is called auto-rearchive) — no need to manually re-trigger archiving.

Can I restore more than one record at a time?

Yes. Bulk Restore, introduced in the Australia release, lets you restore records in bulk using multiselect or filter conditions, instead of restoring one record at a time.

Is there a cap on how much I can restore in one operation?

No defined limit.

Since archived data can't be edited in place: bulk-restore the affected records to primary, apply your deletion/redaction change there, and let auto-rearchive return the cleaned-up records to archive. Separately, you can configure Archive Destroy rules alongside your archive rules to automatically delete archived data after a defined retention period.

Security & governance

Is archived data encrypted?

Yes — archived data is encrypted at rest using the same encryption and key management model as your primary database. If you use Customer Encryption (CE), your own managed keys continue to protect archive data exactly as they protect primary data — there's no difference in behavior.

Can I set different access controls on archive tables than on the live table?

Yes. Archive tables are standard tables from an ACL standpoint. By default they inherit the live table's ACLs, but you can configure them independently if you need tighter or looser access on archived data specifically.

Does domain separation carry over to archived records?

Yes. A record's domain assignment is preserved on archiving, and domain scoping is enforced on queries against archive tables the same as on primary.

If I have dedicated hosting on my primary database, is my archive storage dedicated too?

No. Object storage for Live Archive is always deployed on shared infrastructure with logical separation by instance, regardless of your primary database's hosting model.

Capacity & compression

How much object storage do I get with RaptorDB Professional?

50 TB per licensed account for ServiceNow Cloud instances (not applicable to self-hosted deployments). That allocation is shared across all your instances — production and sub-production — and each instance manages its own archive tables independently within it.

What kind of compression should I expect?

Roughly 50% on average for structured records once they're in columnar format, though actual results vary with your data. Attachments are stored as-is and aren't compressed.

What happens if I'm approaching or over my 50 TB allocation?

Reach out to your account team — they can walk you through your options based on your usage.

How do I monitor storage usage and archive activity?

The Data Management Console shows object storage consumption and archive rule statistics. Note that the figures shown are post-compression, so they won't map 1:1 to the equivalent size in your primary database.

Upgrades, backups & continuity

I'm moving from RaptorDB Standard to RaptorDB Professional. Does my existing archived data migrate automatically?

Yes. Installing the Live Archive plugin automatically converts your existing archived records into the object-storage format for you.

Is archived data included in my instance backups?

Yes — archived data is part of standard instance backup and business continuity processes. The one exception is instance clones.

What happens to archived data in sub-production when I clone from production?

Cloning currently doesn't include archive data — archived data already in your sub-production instance is left alone (not overwritten) and clones themselves don't carry archive data over.

Are archive rule configurations captured in update sets?

Yes — they move through your normal dev → test → prod promotion process like any other configuration change.

What if I need to move back to RaptorDB Standard after using Live Archive?

There's currently no automated downgrade path. Talk to your account team before making this decision, since archived data would generally need to be restored to primary first.

Still have questions?

Drop them in the comments below, or reach out through your account team — we'll keep this FAQ updated as new questions come up.