Data Aging - How To

Topics | How To | Troubleshoot | Support | Related Topics

Enable or Disable Data Aging

Enable Managed Disk Space for Magnetic Data

Schedule Data Aging

Start Data Aging

Suspend Use of a Client Computer Temporarily

Change Media Management Service Configurations

Configure Granular Data Aging Options

Suspend a Job

Resume a Job

Delete a Job

Retain a Job

Delete the Contents of a Media

Verify Number of Days and Cycles in Storage Policy Retention

Enable or Disable Data Aging

Required Capability: See Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To enable or disable Data Aging on a copy:

1. Right-click the storage policy copy for which you wish to enable or disable Data Aging, and then click Properties.
2. From the Retention tab of the Copy Properties dialog box, click the Enable data aging checkbox. Deselect the checkbox to disable data aging.
3. Click OK to save your changes.

Enable Managed Disk Space for Magnetic Data

Related Topics

• Thresholds for Managed Disk Space
• Data Aging and Thresholds for Managed Disk Space on Magnetic Libraries

Required Capability: See Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To enable managed disk space for magnetic data:

1. Right-click the storage policy copy for which you wish to enable or disable Data Aging, and then click Properties.
2. From the Retention tab of the Copy Properties dialog box, select the Enable Managed Disk Space for magnetic data option and click OK.
3. From the Mount Paths tab of the Library Properties dialog box, set the start and stop data aging disk capacity thresholds in the Start aging when data occupied on disk is n % and the Stop aging when data occupied on disk is n % boxes, and click OK to save changes.

Schedule Data Aging

Before You Begin

Once started, if a data aging job cannot be completed, the Job Manager will retry the job up to a total of 150 minutes at 30 minute intervals for a maximum of five times.

Required Capability: See Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To schedule an data aging job:

1. From the CommCell Browser, right-click the CommServe icon, click All Tasks, then click Data Aging.
2. From the Data Aging Options dialog box, click the Job Retry tab to specify the job running time. See Job Running Time for more information.
3. Click the Job Initiation tab and select the Schedule option, then click OK.
4. From the Schedule Details tab select the necessary schedule options.
5. To view the job summary for the data aging job that you have scheduled, click the Job Summary tab of the Schedule Details window.
6. Click OK to save the schedule.

Start Data Aging

Before You Begin

Once started, if a data aging job cannot be completed, the Job Manager will retry the job up to a total of 150 minutes at 30 minute intervals for a maximum of five times.

Required Capability: See Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To start a data aging job:

1. From the CommCell Browser, right-click the CommServe icon, click All Tasks and then click Data Aging.
2. From the Data Aging Options dialog box, select the Run Immediately option.
3. Click the Job Retry tab to specify the job running time. See Job Running Time for more information.
4. Click OK.

Suspend Use of a Client Computer Temporarily

Required Capability: Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To suspend use of a client computer temporarily:

1. Create a New Scratch Pool that does not contain any media, and name it No_Media. Note that a scratch pool with no media associations does not harm any existing configurations, nor does it misuse media.
2. Create a Storage Policy (standard), name it No_Backups, and point it to the No_Media scratch pool.
3. Disable Operations for the client that you are temporarily disabling.
4. Verify that the Queue Jobs if Activity Control is Disabled option is disabled. This will reduce the number of queued jobs in the Job Controller.
5. Re-point all the client's subclients to the No_Backups storage policy. When a user changes the storage policy association of a subclient, retention cycles are set to zero (0), therefore, only the retention days must be exceeded for data to be aged. In this case, the data in the storage policy to which the client's subclients were originally pointing to will age accordingly. Note that if the client computer's activity is re-enabled, you can point the subclients back to their original storage policy.
6. To resume client activity: Enable Operations for the client, and point the subclients back to their original storage policy.

NOTES

• This feature does not require a user to uninstall client software; therefore, no licenses are released during this process.
• Any scheduled jobs associated with the suspended client will cause job failures when initiated. This is normal behavior. Once client activity is re-enabled, these scheduled jobs will no longer cause job failures.

Change Media Management Service Configurations

Required Capability: See Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To schedule an data aging job:

1. From the CommCell Browser, right-click the CommServe icon, and select Control Panel and Media Management.
2. From the Media Management Configuration (Service Configuration) dialog box, select a parameter and change the Value field.
3. Click OK.

Configure Granular Data Aging Options

Before You Begin

Once started, if a data aging job cannot be completed, the Job Manager will retry the job up to a total of 150 minutes at 30 minute intervals for a maximum of five times.

Required Capability: See Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To start a data aging job:

1. From the CommCell Browser, right-click the CommServe icon, click All Tasks and then click Data Aging.
2. From the Data Aging Options dialog box, select the (Aging Options) tab.
3. Select the Age Granular radial option. This will enable the data aging granular options.
4. Configure options suitable for your environment.
5. Click OK.

Suspend a Job

Before You Begin

If you suspend a preemptible job, allow adequate time for the associated processes to stabilize before resuming the job. Resuming the job before the processes stabilize may start additional processes that could interfere with the job.

Required Capability: See Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To suspend a job:

1. From the Job Controller of the CommCell Console, right-click the job you want to suspend and select Suspend from the shortcut menu.
2. The job status may change to Suspend Pending for a few moments while the operation completes. The job status then changes to Suspended.

Resume a Job

Required Capability: See Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To resume a job:

1. From the Job Controller of the CommCell Console, right-click the job to be resumed and select Resume from the shortcut menu.
2. As the Job Manager attempts to restart the job, the job status changes to Waiting, Pending, or Running.

Retain a Job

Required Capability: See Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To start a data aging job:

1. From the right pane of the CommCell Browser, select a storage policy, then right-click the storage policy copy whose jobs you want to view, click View and then click Jobs.
2. If you are viewing jobs for a storage policy copy used by iDataAgents and/or DataArchiver Agents, filter the necessary options in the Job Filter for Storage Policy Copy dialog box. Click OK. If you are viewing jobs for a DR Backup storage policy, then skip to the next step.
3. A list of jobs associated with the storage policy copy is displayed in the Jobs for Storage Policy Copy window or the DR Backups For Copy window.
4. Right-click the job you want to manually retain, and then click Retain Job.
5. From the Manual Retention End Time for Job dialog box, specify the expiration date for the job.
6. Click OK.
7. The expiration date will be displayed in the Retain Until field in the Jobs for Storage Policy Copy window.

Delete a Job

Required Capability: See Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To prune a job from a storage policy copy:

1. From the right pane of the CommCell Browser, right-click the storage policy copy whose jobs you want to view, click View and then click Jobs.
2. Filter the necessary options in the Job Filter for Storage Policy Copy dialog box. Click OK.
3. A list of jobs associated with a storage policy copy is displayed in the Jobs for Storage Policy Copy window.
4. Right-click on a job and select Delete Job. A list of all jobs that will be pruned in addition to the job you selected are displayed in the Delete Job dialog box.
   • To select multiple jobs, hold down the Ctrl key, and right click on the jobs.
5. Click OK.
6. Click Yes on the Confirmation pop-up window that appears.

Delete the Contents of a Media

Required Capability: Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To delete the contents of a media

1. In the left pane of the CommCell Browser, click the Assigned Media node.

   All the assigned media are displayed in the right-pane.

2. From the right pane of the CommCell Browser, right-click the media that you want to delete the content, and then click Delete Contents.

   NOTES

   The Delete Contents option will be displayed only for those media that are available in the library.

3. From the Delete Contents dialog box select the name of the scratch pool to which the media must be moved, after the contents are deleted.
4. Click OK.
5. Click OK in the warning prompt to continue with the operation.

   The media information is deleted from the CommServe database and the media is moved to the specified scratch pool.

   The operation is recorded in the Audit Trail.

Verify Number of Days and Cycles in Storage Policy Retention

Before You Begin

The spreadsheet provided is to allow users to quickly determine the number of days until data is pruned. Only cells highlighted in yellow are configurable by the user.

Required Capability: See Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To verify the number of days and cycles in storage policy retention:

1. Edit the following retention values for a storage policy in the Input section of the following spreadsheet. 
   • Days: The number of days defined in the storage policy.
   • Cycles: The number of cycles defined in the storage policy.
   • Days Between Fulls: The number of days that fall between the full backup operations in the storage policy.
2. Enter the number of extra days in the Extra Days field in the Illustration section of the following spreadsheet to see how retention is affected.
   • Enter 0 to display the maximum number of unprunable days.
   • Enter 1 to add an additional day and display the minimum number of unprunable days.
   • Enter 2 to add two additional days and so on.
3. Verify when the data is prunable in the Illustration section of the spreadsheet.

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