About IBM Optim Archive

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IBM Optim Archive helps organizations to extract relational data from production databases, then securely store the data for future use while preserving referential integrity.

IBM Optim is ideal for organizations seeking to manage and optimize data retention and archiving while maintaining compliance with data privacy regulations.

Use IBM Optim Archive to create searchable archives from your valuable data. Efficiently locate, subset, mask, and create archives from your data while preserving referential integrity and ensuring compliance with data privacy regulations. IBM Optim Archive helps you to manage data retention policies consistently across storage devices, including cloud data stores.

Search and view the data stored in your archives, and quickly build flows to extract the archived data and restore it to a target database of your choosing. IBM Optim Archive supports selective restoration to production or non-production databases, and also enables you to browse multiple archive files so you can retrieve specific information for audits and legal discovery.

During archiving, IBM Optim Archive can discover relationships within your data, and then create referentially intact archive files in open formats. IBM Optim Archive preserves referential integrity across different applications when archiving and restoring archived data, and supports application-independent access to archive files. By default, IBM Optim uses Apache Iceberg table format for archives.

Designed with a cloud-native, containerized architecture, IBM Optim Archive provides scalable deployment options and a modern user interface. IBM Optim integrates with IBM’s broader data and AI ecosystem to support enterprise-wide data governance and modernization initiatives.

Comparing IBM Optim products

IBM Optim Archive shares some capabilities with the following related IBM Optim products:
IBM Optim Test Data Management

IBM Optim Test Data Management streamlines the provisioning of secure, production-like test data across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. IBM Optim Test Data Management is available with a Workgroup edition license, a Solution edition license, or an Enterprise edition license. For more information, see the IBM Optim Test Data Management documentation on IBM Docs

IBM Optim Data Privacy

IBM Optim Data Privacy provides you with a single, scalable solution to securely mask and de-identify sensitive data across your enterprise. IBM Optim Data Privacy is available with a Workgroup edition license or an Enterprise edition license. For more information, see the IBM Optim Data Privacy documentation on IBM Docs.

The following table shows which IBM Optim capabilities and features are included in each of the three IBM Optim products. Contact IBM Sales or IBM Support to discuss which product and license edition is right for your organization.

Table 1. Feature differences between IBM Optim products
Capability IBM Optim Archive 2.0.0 (Workgroup edition, Solution edition, or Enterprise edition) IBM Optim Test Data Management 2.0.0 (Workgroup edition, Solution edition, or Enterprise edition) IBM Optim Data Privacy 2.0.0 (Workgroup edition or Enterprise edition)
Connect to data sources
Solution edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Solution edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Create access definitions
Solution edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Solution edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Manage jobs
Solution edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Solution edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Define data subsets
Solution edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Solution edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Mask data
Solution edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Solution edition: No
Enterprise edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Export data
Solution edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Solution edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Archive data
Solution edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Solution edition: No
Enterprise edition: No
Enterprise edition: No
Restore archives to a database
Solution edition: No
Enterprise edition: Yes
Solution edition: No
Enterprise edition: No
Enterprise edition: No
View archives
Solution edition: No
Enterprise edition: Yes
Solution edition: No
Enterprise edition: No
Enterprise edition: No
Define IBM Optim relationships
Solution edition: No
Enterprise edition: Yes
Solution edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: Yes
Enterprise edition: No

IBM Optim software usage metrics

The following table details the metrics that IBM uses to track the usage of IBM Optim product software, according to the license agreements. IBM Optim uses two metrics by which the software can be licensed, depending on the product and edition:
  • Processor value units (PVU): A PVU is a unit of measurement used by IBM to determine licensing costs for software, based on the computing power of the processor cores it runs on rather than just the number of servers.
  • Terabytes (TB): A Terabyte is 2 to the 40th power bytes. Licensees must obtain an entitlement for each terabyte available to IBM Optim software.
Table 2. Comparing IBM Optim software license metrics
IBM Optim product and edition Processor value units (PVU) Terabytes (TB)
IBM Optim Archive Enterprise edition license Yes Yes
IBM Optim Archive Solution edition license Yes No
IBM Optim Archive Enterprise edition license Yes Yes
IBM Optim Archive Solution edition license Yes No
IBM Optim Data Privacy Enterprise edition license Yes Yes

For more information about tracking software usage metrics, see Enabling SLM tags and the IBM License Metric Tool documentation on IBM Docs.