Archival of data in a relational database management system using block level copy

A computer program product for archiving data in a relational database management system, a computer comprising at least one processor, one or more memories, one or more computer readable storage media, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by the computer to perform a method comprising:

• creating, by the computer, an invisible index for each primary index of a data table by copying data from the data table of the primary indexes that will not be archived;
• updating, by the computer, both the primary index and invisible indexes based on changes to the data table until an input is received to initiate a block copy of data to be archived;
• receiving, by the computer, an input to initiate block copy of data to be archived;
• locking, by the computer, the data tables;
• block copying, by the computer, identified blocks of data from the data table to an archive table and updating the invisible index to correspond to the data table;
• replacing, by the computer, the primary index with the invisible index;
• unlocking, by the computer, the data tables;
• deleting, by the computer, data blocks from a main table which was copied into the archival table;
• and
• deleting, by the computer, the primary index in which the invisible index was created from prior to archiving.

A computer system for archiving data in a relational database management system comprising a computer comprising at least one processor, one or more memories, one or more computer readable storage media having program instructions executable by the computer to perform the program instructions comprising:

• creating, by the computer, an invisible index for each primary index of a data table by copying data from the data table of the primary indexes that will not be archived;
• updating, by the computer, both the primary index and invisible indexes based on changes to the data table until an input is received to initiate a block copy of data to be archived;
• receiving, by the computer, an input to initiate block copy of data to be archived;
• locking, by the computer, the data tables;
• block copying, by the computer, identified blocks of data from the data table to an archive table and updating the invisible index to correspond to the data table;
• replacing, by the computer, the primary index with the invisible index;
• unlocking, by the computer, the data tables;
• deleting, by the computer, data blocks from a main table which was copied into the archival table;
• and
• deleting, by the computer, the primary index in which the invisible index was created from prior to archiving.