An archive is a location to which an archived package is delivered or stored. An archival location can contain only archived packages. An archive is a single binary collection of all of the items in a package. Archived packages are also referred to as SPK files, which is short for SAS Package. The consumer can use the stand-alone product SAS Package Reader subsequently to uncompress, or unzip, and use the file. SAS Package Retriever can be used to access the package from the archive and to store the package elsewhere.

Archiving a Package

Publishing a package to an archive provides the following advantages:

You conserve disk resources.
The package stays in a static location, allowing consumers, persons or programs, to retrieve the package at their convenience
The SAS data package entries are available to consumers who do not have SAS software installed on their systems.

After the administrator has configured archive paths (and optionally configured channels that have default archive paths), the publisher can publish packages directly to an archive. The publisher can use the following methods to publish an archive:

Configuring Archives

The administrator configures archives under the following conditions:

to support package archiving, which is the process of collecting all package entries into a single binary file
to use as a repository for archived packages that contain data that consumers can access at their convenience.

If the organization chooses to implement archiving in the publishing environment, the administrator must configure the following objects:

Archival paths: enable publishers to select from a list of predefined paths to which they can publish a package as an archived file to an archive. The administrator can define paths as directory locations or LDAP URLs. The administrator must know about an LDAP server environment and LDAP metadata storage in order to specify archival paths.
Default archive path for each configured channel: can be associated with a channel to which subscribers can subscribe. Channels that are configured for access to all subscribers are made available for subscription in SAS Subscription Manager, SAS Management Console, and the SAS Information Delivery Portal. Likewise, restricted channels do not appear in the channels list for subscribers who are not configured to access them. Consumers are notified of a package delivery to an archive by way of subscription to a channel that has a default archive location that is associated with it.

For detailed instructions on setting up archives, see Administering the Publishing Framework in the SAS Integration Technologies: Administrator's Guide. If you are using an LDAP directory server as your metadata repository, see Administering the Publishing Framework in the SAS Integration Technologies: Administrator's Guide (LDAP Version).