Because Archive can search an index more quickly than it can search an Archive File, Archive Indexes can greatly enhance performance for searches and restorations of archived data. As your organization's applications and business processes evolve, however, its requirements for searching or restoring archived data might change.
For example, after several years of monthly Archive Processes to remove two-year-old sales transactions from the production database, a company adopts new audit processes that require information about sales transactions for one or more specific products over a five-year period. Although the archived data was indexed at the time it was archived, indexes to locate transactions by product do not exist. To support the new audit applications, the Archive Administrator can use the Archive Index Maintenance Utility to analyze, add, delete, augment, or edit indexes for sales data that was archived years earlier.
To open the Index Maintenance dialog, click in the menu in the main window. The Archive File Filters and Select Archive File(s) dialogs are displayed at the same time.