In-Row Off-Row LOB

SAP ASE supports the storage of in-row LOB columns for text, image, and unitext datatypes when they are small, and subject to available space in the page.

When a LOB expands in size or its space is used for other in-row columns (such as those used for varchar and varbinary datatypes), SAP ASE seamlessly migrates the in-row LOB data to off-row storage, automatically replacing the data with an in-row text pointer.

You can use:

create table to specify in-row storage of LOB columns
alter table to perform modifications of how LOB columns are stored
create or alter database commands to manage database-wide in-row lengths for LOB columns

When you map Component Integration Services (CIS) proxy tables to remote SAP ASE tables that contain in-row LOB columns, you must define the LOB columns in the proxy tables as off-row LOBs. All data transmissions occur as off-row LOB column data.

In versions earlier than 15.7, SAP ASE always stored large object (LOB) columns (such as text, image, unitext, and XML) off-row, using a text pointer (txtptr) to identify the start page ID value, and storing the pointer in the data row. This includs serialized Java classes, which are stored in-row only if they are shorter than a fixed maximum length.

In-Row LOB Columns Compression
If you define the LOB column for compression, the LOB compression extends to the data portion of the in-row LOBs when the LOB data is moved off-row, and the log data size exceeds the logical page size.
Migrate Off-Row LOB Data to In-Row Storage
Some data definition language (DDL) and utility operations that work on an entire table copy all table data by rewriting the data row to match that of the target schema.
Downgrading Tables Containing In-Row LOB Columns
You cannot downgrade an SAP ASE server that has any tables that are defined with an in-row LOB column, regardless of whether the table actually contains any data in that column.