The archiver process (dmfacp) is responsible for copying the history of operations performed on journaled databases from the transaction log file to the journal files. The archiver process maintains a history of important actions in its own message log file, iiacp.log.

The archiver process removes completed transactions from the transaction log file. For journaled tables, the archiver writes any completed transaction to the journal files for the database. Each database has its own journal files, which contain a record of all the changes made to the database since the last checkpoint was taken. The archiver process “sleeps” until sufficient portions of the transaction log file are ready to be archived or until the last user exits from a database.