Search in an Archive
FLAM as access method really comes to bear when particular transactions or records have frequently to be retrieved from large archives. In the past we have provided for several customers (central archives for telecommunications provider and large financial institutions) a standardized solution called FLAM Intelligent Archive & Query (FLIA&Q) which is briefly described below.
Overview
Various indices over freely definable data fields limit the number of segments, and hence the number of records, that must be decrypted and/or decompressed for sequential searches for the respective result set.
- Plain data only in memory
- No temporary files needed
- Very fast search in large archives
- Location of individual data records or lists
FLAM Intelligent Archive
The FLAM® Intelligent Archive Tool is used to build indices over various data fields which enables subsequent searching in encrypted and compressed FLAMFILE®s for particular data records.
What has to be done:
- Purchase of a tool for each data format
- Selection of data fields for subsequent queries
- Executing FLAM® Intelligent Archive (FLIA)
- Archiving of resulting pairs of files
Benefits:
- Supporting different file formats
- Compression and/or encryption
- Unambiguous association of index and data files
- No back-tracking of data possible from index
- Data fields for indexing can be chosen freely
- Dual control by seperation of index and data
- Small overhead (5%) by index file
- Multiple index files possible
- Means to limit data access
FLAM Intelligent Query (FLIQ)
FLAM® Intelligent Query Tool is used for retrieving particular data records from encrypted and compressd FLAMFILE®s.
What has to be done:
- Purchase of a tool for each data format
- Specifying query arguments per data field
- Executing FLAM® Intelligent Query (FLIQ)
- Processing of plain data retrieved
Benefits:
- Very fast solution for large long-term archives
- No temporary plain text files
- Only few plain data records in memory
- Result set can be directed to a display, a file, or a compressed and encrypted FLAMFILE
- Easy integration into archiving systems
- Cost-efficient customized solution
- Fully audit-proof by dual control
FLIA&Q was developed within a project as a solution because at the time, the function of searching in compressed and encrypted data was not integrated in FLAM. The design of the new FLAM archive in FLAM5 was greatly influenced by our experience from these projects so searching is now a standard function of the product. The FLIA&Q projects were a decisive argument for introducing a new archive format in FLAM5.