Retention policy defines the policies of persistent data management for meeting business data archival requirements.
When a backup job is performed, for data that are modified or deleted on your computer, the existing version on the backup storage (backed up previously) would be moved into retention area, while newly backed up file would be placed in the current data area.
Specifically, retention policy setting defines how long are these data kept within the retention area before they are deleted permanently from the backup storage.
For backed up data that have not been updated or deleted from your computer, they are kept in the data area on the backup storage and remain untouched.
Two types of retention policy settings can be set:
A simple retention policy defines a basic policy where retained file (in the retention area) are removed automatically after a user specified number of days or backup jobs.
An advanced retention policy defines a more advanced and flexible policy where retained file (in the retention area) are removed automatically after a combination of user defined policy, such as:
Field | Description |
Name | Retention policy name. |
Type | Type of the retention period setting. Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly, and Custom can be selected. |
For example, you are required to keep your company's data for 7 years according to the following rules.
To achieve the above example policy, configured the advanced retention policy as follows:
Type: Daily
Number of days to keep: 7
Type: Weekly
Keep retention files for the following days: Saturday
Number of weeks to keep: 4
Type: Monthly
Keep retention files for the following days: Day 1
Number of months to keep: 3
Type: Quarterly
Keep retention files for the following days:
Month - January, April, July, October
Day 1
Number of quarters to keep: 4
Type: Yearly
Keep retention files for the following days: January - 01
Number of years to keep: 7
Assuming that a file is updated and being backed up everyday for the past 7 years, and today is January 15, 2014. A total of 22 restorable versions of the file would be available for restore:
Daily | Weekly | Monthly | Quarterly | Yearly |
15-Jan-2014 14-Jan-2014 13-Jan-2014 12-Jan-2014 11-Jan-2014 10-Jan-2014 09-Jan-2014 |
11-Jan-2014 03-Jan-2014 28-Dec-2013 21-Dec-2013 |
01-Jan-2014 01-Dec-2013 01-Nov-2013 |
01-Jan-2014 01-Oct-2013 01-Jul-2013 01-Apr-2013 |
01-Jan-2014 01-Jan-2013 01-Jan-2012 01-Jan-2011 01-Jan-2010 01-Jan-2009 01-Jan-2008 |
The Retention Policy and Space Freeing Up feature is closely related, as the criteria for space freeing up is governed by the retention policy setting configured for a backup set.
Please refer to the Space Freeing Up section for further details.