Data Aging - Advanced

Getting Started Advanced Troubleshooting FAQ Support  

Table of Contents

Basic Retention Rules

Extended Retention Rules

Spreadsheet for Calculating Retention

Log Retention Rules for Databases

Manage Retention of Individual Jobs

Retaining a Job

Deleting a Job

Override Pre-Defined Retention Rules for a Backup Job

Data Aging of Specific Data (Granular Data Aging)

Aging Data in Select Storage Policy Copies

Aging Data in Select Libraries

Aging Data in Select Clients

Data Aging and Time Zones

Data Aging in the CommServe Time Zone

Data Aging in the Storage Policy Time Zone

Data Aging in the Client Computer's Time Zone

Data Aging and Storage Policy Copies

Data Aging and Media Recycling

Recover or Save Aged Data

Recovering Aged Data

Saving Aged Data

Delete the Contents of Media

Data Aging and Disk Libraries

Data Aging and Deconfigured Clients

Data Aging of Disaster Recovery Data

Data Aging of Audit Trail Data

Data Aging of Job History Data

Data Aging for Deduplicated Data

Data Aging for SnapProtect Snapshots

Retention by Number of Jobs

Effects of Other Operations on Data Aging

Schedule Data Aging Jobs

Manage Data Aging Jobs

Enable / Disable Data Aging Jobs in a Storage Policy

Suspend / Resume Data Aging Jobs

Enabling Restartability for Data Aging Jobs

Data Retention Forecast and Compliance Report

Basic Retention Rules

Understanding the data retention and aging process is important for managing storage in your CommCell.

Basic retention is defined as follows:

Retention Cycles

A retention cycle starts with a full (or synthetic full) backup followed by all subsequent incremental, differential, or transactional log backups that are dependent upon the full backup.

When retention cycles are defined, the number of cycles must be exceeded before the data is eligible for aging.

Retention Days

Retention days are the minimum number of days that all data protection jobs must be kept.

When retention days are defined, the number of days must be exceeded before the data is eligible for aging.

Understanding Retention Days and Cycles

When a combination of days and cycles are used, the retention days must be exceeded for all jobs in the cycle before the data is eligible for aging.

The following example illustrates how days and cycles work together:

In the above example, the primary copy will always have a minimum of two weeks worth of data at any given point.

Note, however, that the actual aging will occur only when the cycle is completed in the third week.

Setting Up Basic Retention Rules

  1. Right-click the desired storage policy copy, and select Properties.
  2. Click the Retention tab.
  3. Click Retain for and enter the number of days and cycles appropriate for your organization.

    By default, retention is set to 365 days and 15 cycles.

  4. Click OK.

Extended Retention Rules

Extended retention rules allow you to keep specific full (or synthetic full) backups for longer periods of time.

Extended retention rules can be used in the following circumstances:

In all other cases, it is recommended that the Auxiliary Copy feature be used for extended storage as it actually creates another physical copy of the data, thereby reducing the risk of data loss due to media failure.

Understanding Extended Retention Rules

Extended retention allows you to retain a specific full (or synthetic full) backup for an additional period of time. For example, you may want to retain your monthly full backups for 90 days.

Extended retention rules allow you to define three additional "extended" retention periods for full (or synthetic full) backups. For example:

A backup job will be selected for extended retention based on its start time. For example: If a backup job starts at 11:55 pm on August 31st and ends at 1 am on September 1st, then it will be selected as the last full backup for the month of August and will be picked up for extended retention.

Setting Up Extended Retention Rules

Use the following steps for setting up the extended retention rules:
  1. Right-click the storage policy copy and click Properties.
  2. Click the Retention tab.
  3. Set the basic retention rules by clicking Retain for and entering the number of days and cycles appropriate for your organization.
  4. Set the extended retention rules as follows:

    Click the For button.

    Enter the number of Days Total to retain the backup.

    Click the Keep drop-down list, and select the desired backup criteria (e.g., Monthly Full).

    Click the Grace Days drop-down list and select the number of days (e.g., 2).
  5. Repeat Step 4 to configure additional extended retention.
  6. Click OK.

Spreadsheet for Calculating Retention

You can use a spreadsheet to calculate retention. Click here to download the spreadsheet, and then enter your data into spreadsheet.

  1. Open the spreadsheet.
  2. Enter the following in the Input section highlighted in yellow:
  3. 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.
  4. Verify when the data will be aged in the Illustration section of the spreadsheet.

Log Retention Rules for Databases

Database Agents have unique retention rules and behaviors for logs. Refer to the Data Aging topic for your Agent for complete details on log retention rules.

Manage Retention of Individual Jobs

Retaining a Job

You can extend the expiration date of a specific job. This will override the default retention set at the corresponding storage policy.

Note that if the data resides on removable media, the media will not be recycled until the jobs are manually aged.

1.
  • From the CommCell Browser, navigate to Policies | Storage Policies.
  • Right-click the storage policy copy and click View | Jobs.
2. Click OK.
3. Right-click the job and click Retain Job.
4. Select the date in the Retain Until box.
5. Click OK.
6. The expiration date will be displayed in Retain Until field in the Jobs for Storage Policy window. 

Deleting a Job

You can delete a specific job if it no longer needs to be retained. This is useful to remove bad jobs that may impact your Auxiliary Copy operation. You can also use this option to remove unnecessary jobs that are preventing media from being reused.

Note that all dependent jobs will be automatically aged when a full job is selected for deletion.

1.
  • From the CommCell Browser, navigate to Policies | Storage Policies.
  • Right-click the storage policy copy and click View | Jobs.
2. Click OK.
3. Right-click the job and click Delete Job.
4. Click OK.
5. A list of dependent jobs (incremental backups, log backups, etc.), if available, will be displayed.

Click OK to delete the jobs.

Override Pre-defined Retention Rules for a Backup Job

You can override the pre-defined storage policy retention rules and apply new rules for specific data retention jobs. Follow the steps given below to manually specify the data retention time for a specific job.

Overriding the retention is a job based retention operation and does not affect any other jobs, it only affects the job that you are changing the retention.
  • From the CommCell Console, navigate to <Client> | File System | defaultBackupSet.
  • Right-click the Subclient and click Backup
  • Click Advanced tab and click Media.
  • Specify the retention rules to apply to this job in the Extend Job Retention section.
    • Infinite: Retains this job indefinitely.
    • Number of Days: Prunes (deletes) this job after the number of days specified.
    • Storage Policy Default: Applies the retention rules of the associated storage policy.
  • Click OK.
  • Click OK.

Data Aging of Specific Data (Granular Data Aging)

Several options are available for leveraging data aging jobs across a CommCell. These options reduce overhead on the CommServe computer and provide CommCell administrators with the flexibility to perform data aging operations for their own entities at times convenient for them. The following sections describe these options.

Aging Data in Selected Storage Policy Copies

This option may be useful in the following scenarios:

  1. Right-click the CommServe icon and click All Tasks | Data Aging.
  2. Click Advanced.
  3. Click Age Granular.
  4. Click Select Copies.
  5. Click Prune Selected Copies.
  6. Highlight and click the copies you wish to age.
  7. Click OK.
The data aging job runs and all data that meets the retention criteria in the selected copies will be aged.

Aging Data in Selected Libraries

This option may be useful in the following scenarios:

  1. Right-click the CommServe icon and click All Tasks | Data Aging.
  2. Click Advanced.
  3. Click Age Granular.
  4. Click Select Copies.
  5. Select Prune Copies Using Selected Libraries.
  6. Select the Libraries for those available and click Add.
  7. Click OK.

The data aging job runs and all data that meets the retention criteria in the specified library will be aged.

Aging Data in Selected Clients

This option may be useful in the following scenarios:

  1. Right-click the CommServe icon and click All Tasks | Data Aging.
  2. Click Advanced.
  3. Click Age Granular.
  4. Select the clients you want to age from Clients Available and click Add, or

    Select Include All Clients to age all clients.

  5. Click OK.

The data aging job runs and all data that meets the retention criteria from the specified clients will be aged.

Data Aging and Time Zones

Data aging operations age data according to the time zone of the associated storage policy.

You can designate the following time zones for a storage policy:

  Exercise caution while changing time zones, especially when the time zone of a client is set to an earlier time. This can cause data to be aged earlier than intended.

Data Aging in the CommServe Time Zone

The CommServe time zone is the default for all storage policies. Use this option if you want your aging operations to be performed using the CommServe's time zone.

1.
  • From the CommCell Console, navigate to Policies | Storage Policies.
  • Right-click the storage policy and click Properties.
2. Click the Time Zone drop-down list, and select CommServe Time Zone.
3.
  • Click OK to close the Warning dialog.
  • Click OK to save your changes.

Data Aging in the Storage Policy Time Zone

You can configure a storage policy for all clients within a specific time zone as follows:

1.
  • From the CommCell Console, navigate to Policies | Storage Policies.
  • Right-click the storage policy and click Properties.
2. Click the Time Zone drop-down list, and select the appropriate time zone.

For example, if all the clients associated with the storage policy are located in EST, pick (GMT - 4:00) Atlantic Time.
3.
  • Click OK to close the Warning dialog.
  • Click OK to save your changes.

Data Aging in the Client Computer's Time Zone

If your storage policy is associated with clients in multiple time zones, you can set the time zone as follows:

1.
  • From the CommCell Console, navigate to Policies | Storage Policies.
  • Right-click the storage policy and click Properties.
2. Click the Advanced tab.
3. Click the Time Zone drop-down list, and select Client Time Zone.
4.
  • Click OK to close the Warning dialog.
  • Click OK to save your changes for the storage policy.

Data Aging and Storage Policy Copies

Data aging behavior differs based on the types of copies that you are using. The following table describes the behavior for aging specific copy types.

Copy Name Description
Primary Copy without Secondary Copies If data aging can be performed on a primary copy and there are no secondary copies defined, the data on the primary copy can be aged provided the data has exceeded its specified retention criteria.
Primary Copy with Synchronous and Selective Copies Data aging can be performed on a storage policy with synchronous and/or selective copies defined. Data is aged according to the primary copy retention rule only when all data eligible to be aged is copied to all active copies during an auxiliary copy operation.
Secondary Copy The data aging of a secondary copy is dependent on the selected retention criteria set for that copy.
Incremental Storage Policy Copy If data aging is performed on a storage policy that has an incremental storage policy enabled, the data aging operation counts backup cycles across both full and incremental storage policies. Data on a full storage policy is aged based on the retention of the full storage policy, and data on the incremental policy is aged based on the retention rules of the incremental policy.

If the incremental storage policy is also being used as a regular storage policy (and has full backups), the full backups will be also aged according to any basic and extended retention rules that are set.

It is recommended that the retention rule for the full storage policy is greater than the incremental storage policy. Data on incremental policy will be aged earlier if it has shorter retention than the full storage policy. If the incremental storage policy has longer retention than a full storage policy, this may result in dangling incremental jobs.
Source Copy that is not a Primary Copy Data Aging can be performed on data copied during an auxiliary copy operation from a non-primary copy source. 

The rules for data aging on source copies are as follows:

  • Data can be aged from the primary copy when there are To Be Copied jobs and the primary copy is not the source copy.
  • Data can be aged from a secondary copy that is a source copy once all of its data is copied to the secondary copy.

The following examples illustrate how data is aged from a storage policy that has three copies; primary copy Primary_01, Secondary_01, and Secondary_02. Secondary_02 uses Secondary_01 as a source copy. The retention rules for each copy are as follows:

  • Primary_01 = 15 days and 2 cycles
  • Secondary_01 = 1 day and 1 cycle
  • Secondary_02 = 30 days and 2 cycles
Spool Copy Allows you to use a primary copy as a temporary holding area for protected data until it is copied to an active synchronous copy. Once copied, the data on the primary copy is aged. This copy has a retention rule of 0 days and 0 cycles, and hence, once an auxiliary copy operation is performed, all data on this copy is aged when Data Aging is run.

Synchronous copies can not be deleted when a primary copy has the Spool Copy (no retention) option enabled, and there is no coverage for all of the subclients in the secondary copies. Instead, users are prompted with a warning message to change the retention period of the primary copy or to create another synchronous copy. The rule for data aging from spool copies is as follows:

  • The data must be copied to an active synchronous copy. The way in which data is aged is also contingent upon the following:
    • Whether the data protection operation was successful, killed, or failed.
    • Whether the storage policy has secondary copies and whether they are active.
    • Whether jobs are disabled on the storage policy copy.
    • Whether jobs still need to be copied to secondary copies.
Incremental and Differential Copies Incremental and differential copies are retained based on the rules defined for their associated storage policy copy. However, you can configure data aging to age intermediate incremental and differential copies preceding a new differential. This is useful to minimize wasted disk space.

Note that this configuration will also consider the retention days set on the storage policy copy for incremental or differential jobs. If the differential job is run, then incremental or differential jobs before the last differential in a cycle are pruned once the retention day criteria is met. For example, if your jobs ran in the following pattern:

  • 1st cycle: Full, Incremental_01, Incremental_02, Differential_01, Incremental_03, Incremental_04, Differential_02
  • Retention: Set to 7 days and 2 cycles.

Assuming that Do not retain intermediate incremental and differentials before a new differential option is selected and from the intermediate jobs between Full and Differential_02 once these jobs (Incremental_01, Incremental_02, Differential_01, Incremental_03, Incremental_04) meets the days retention criteria then these jobs will be aged, even if these jobs haven't met the cycle criteria.

Use the following steps to configure data aging to age intermediate incremental and differential jobs:

  1. From the CommCell Browser, navigate to Policies | Storage Policies | <Storage Policy>.
  2. Right-click <Storage Policy Copy> and then click Properties.
  3. Click the Retention tab.
  4. Select Do not retain intermediate incremental and differentials before a new differential check box.
  5. Click OK.

Data Aging and Media Recycling

Data is only removed from media when all data on the media has been aged. As such, if half the data on a given media has been aged, that data will remain available for data recovery operations until the remaining data on the media is aged. Once all data on the media is aged, the media will then be recycled for future data protection operations.

Once a data aging operation deletes all data on tape media that has exceeded its retention rules, the media is returned to the associated scratch pool. Once the tape media is reused, the data originally written to it cannot be restored. Media that has an active status is not recycled back to the scratch pool until the media has a non-active status.

Recover or Save Aged Data

Recovering Aged Data

As the data aging operation only marks the metadata for deletion, the actual data in the media may be available for restores. You can view such aged data during browse and restores operations by enabling the following option.

  1. From the CommCell Browser, right-click the CommServe, click Control Panel, and then click Browse/Recovery.
  2. Click and enable the Show Data Aged During Browse and Recovery option.
  3. Click OK.

Aged data will now be included in the display when you start a Browse and Restore operation.

Saving Aged Data

You can save a spare media containing aged data and prevent the media from being overwritten, thereby allowing you to restore the data from the media at any time.

  1. From the CommCell Browser, select Destination Pool type | Libraries | <Library name> | Media By Groups | Default Scratch.

    The contents of the scratch pool are displayed in the right pane of the Browser.

  2. From the right pane of the CommCell Browser, right-click the media that you want to move, and then click Move.
  3. Select the Overwrite Protect Media pool in the Destination Pool type and the specific Overwrite Protect Media pool in Destination Pool.
  4. Click OK to complete the transfer.

You can also save assigned media containing aged data.

  1. From the CommCell Browser, select Destination Pool type | Libraries | <Library name> | Media By Groups | Assigned Media.

    The contents of the Assigned Media pool is displayed in the right pane of the Browser.

  2. From the right pane of the CommCell Browser, right-click the media that you want to prevent reuse, and then click Prevent Reuse.
  3. Select the specific Overwrite Protect Media pool in Destination Saved Pool.
  4. Click OK to save the information.

Delete the Contents of Media

If necessary, you can manually delete the contents of a media before the media's remaining data is aged. Use this option if you require the use of the media for critical data protection jobs and are certain you will no longer need any of the remaining data on that media.

Caution

Once deleted, the contents of the media are not available for data recovery operations, and the system will not automatically force the next data protection operation to be a full backup.  If you delete the contents of the media, you should immediately run a full backup for all the subclients associated with the media once the operations is complete.

  1. From the the CommCell Browser, select the Assigned Media node.
  2. Right-click the desired media and select Delete Contents.

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

  3. Click Yes.
  4. Type erase and reuse media and click OK.
  5. Select the name of the scratch pool to which the media must be moved, after the contents are deleted.
  6. Click OK.
  7. Click OK.

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

Data Aging and Disk Libraries

Two disk capacity thresholds for managed disk space can be defined. They are:

Enable Managed Disk Space

The Enable Managed Disk Space for disk data option is available in the Retention tab of the Copy Properties dialog box. If a storage policy is created with a valid retention criteria other than infinite retention, then this option is automatically enabled in the copies.

Configure Disk Capacity Thresholds

The pre-defined thresholds for disk capacity for a disk library can be defined in the Mount Paths tab of the Library Properties (associated with a disk library) dialog box.

Configure Disk Check Frequency

The frequency for checking the disk space and deleting data is determined by the frequency established in the Interval (Minutes) between disk space updates option established in the Service Configuration tab of the Media Management Configuration dialog box in the Control Panel.

Data Aging and Deconfigured Clients

When a client or an agent is deconfigured, the client's data is aged according to the corresponding storage policy copy’s retention time and cycle rules.

If necessary, you can ignore retention cycle rules for the deconfigured client. This option prevents the deconfigured client's data from being aged according to backup cycles that the client is no longer included in.

  1. From the CommCell Browser, select Tools | Control Panel.
  2. Double-click Media Management
  3. Click the Data Aging tab.
  4. Change the value for the Ignore Cycles Retention on De-Configured Clients option from 0 to 1.
  5. Click OK.
  You can temporarily suspend client activity to age its data without uninstalling the client software or meeting the cycle retention requirement. This makes media more readily available for new data.

Data Aging of Disaster Recovery Data

By default, the disaster recovery backup data is retained for 60 days and 60 cycles.

If you want to change the retention time for disaster recovery backup data, it is recommended that you keep the default setting as the minimum and configure  extended retention rules defined as follows:

  1. From the CommCell Browser, double-click the Storage Policy Copy associated with your Disaster Recovery backups.
  2. Click the Retention tab.
  3. Ensure that the Basic Retention Rule is set to the following setting:

    60 Days

    60 Cycles

  4. Enable the first Extended Retention Rule and specify:

    180 Days Total

    Keep Weekly Full

  5. Enable the second Extended Retention Rule and specify:

    Infinite

    Keep Monthly Full

  6. Click OK.

Data Aging of Audit Trail Data

By default, CommCell operations tracked by Audit Trail are aged based on the following criteria:

  • Critical-Level operations are retained for 365 days
  • High-Level operations are retained for 365 days.
  • Medium-Level operations are retained for 240 days.
  • Low-Level operations are retained 120 days.

These criteria can be changed as follows:

  1. Navigate to the Tools menu in the CommCell Console.
  2. Click Control Panel.
  3. Select Audit Trail.
  4. Enter the desired retention time (in days) for each severity level.
  5. Click OK.

Data Aging of Job History Data

Job history data is aged according to the following criteria:

The following table illustrates how job history data is aged.

Job Type Job Status When It Is Aged
All Jobs Any When the job's storage policy or storage policy copy is deleted
Data Protection Job History/Disaster Recovery Backup Job History Successful With its associated data, which is aged based on the associated storage policy copy's defined retention rules
Failed/Killed 90 Days
Data Recovery Job History (including CDR Recovery operations) Any 90 Days
Administration Job History Any 90 Days
You can change the default retention times for job history data as follows:
  1. From the Tools menu, click Control Panel and then select Media Management.
  2. Click the Data Aging tab.
  3. Choose one of these parameters and click the Value field to change the default retention time:
    • Days to keep the successful Backup Job Histories: Records are retained 7 days.
    • Days to keep the archiver restore job histories: This setting is applicable for Exchange Compliance Archiver. All other archiver restore job histories will be aged based on the Days to keep the successful backup job histories parameter. Records are retained for 0 days.
      When the value is set to 0, the retention is set to infinite and not zero days.
    • Days to keep the failed/killed backup job and other job histories: Records are retained for 90 days.  Applies to: auxiliary copy jobs, stub recall jobs, failed jobs, killed jobs, jobs that failed to start, and non-archive restore jobs.
    • Days to keep Data Management and Collection Job Histories: Records are retained for 90 days.
    • Days to keep Replication Backup Job Histories: Records are retained 90 days.
  4. Click OK.

Data Aging for Deduplicated Data

Data Aging operations will automatically look up the deduplication store before data is deleted from the disk. Data Aging will only delete the source data when all the references to a given block is aged. So if you see older chunks in disk libraries remaining on the volume even if the original data is deleted, it might be due to the fact that deduplication reference(s) to the chunk is still valid.

If a deduplication store is offline, then that store will not be aged until all data on the store is eligible for aging.

Do not manually delete the Deduplication Store. The Deduplication Store facilitates the deduplication backup jobs and data aging jobs. If deleted, new deduplicated backup jobs cannot be performed and the existing data in the disk mount paths will never be aged.

Data Aging for SnapProtect Snapshots

The following procedures describe the available retention configurations for snapshots. For movement to media retention, refer to Data Aging - Getting Started.

Retention by Number of Jobs

By default, snapshots are pruned based on the number of retention days and cycles specified in the storage policy. You can configure your snapshot copy to retain a defined number of SnapProtect backup jobs. When the total number of jobs goes above the specified retention number, the remaining jobs will be pruned. This configuration is recommended for File System and File System like Agents. This feature is supported for SnapProtect operations performed using the NetApp storage array.

The NetApp Snap Management license is required for retaining snaps by number of jobs.

1.
  • From the CommCell Console, navigate to Policies | Storage Policies | <Storage Policy>.
  • Right-click the primary snapshot copy and click Properties.
2.
  • Click the Retention tab.
  • Click Retain Snaps by Number of Jobs.
  • Click OK to the warning dialog box.
  • Specify the number of jobs to be retained for the primary copy.
  • Click OK.

 

Effects of Other Operations on Data Aging

The following table describes the behavior for other operations on data aging.

operation Description Related Topics
Erase Data Data that has been backed up or archived can be permanently erased. The erased data will not be available for browsing and recovery.

When data is marked for erasing, the data remains on the media until it is aged off according to the retention rules set for the data in the storage policy or storage policy copy.

Data from Erase Backup/Archive operations can be aged as follows:

  • If the Erase Backup/Archive operation is older than all the backup data of the agent that the Erase backup/archive job was run for.
  • If there are already three Erase Backup/Archive operations that were run for the agent.
  • Archive files are aged upon completion of auxiliary copy operations.
Refer to Erase Backed Up/Archived Data.
Multiplexed Data Data protection operations can be run concurrently to the same media using more than one data stream. This avoids having to back up data at much slower than actual speeds of the tape.

Multiplexed data chunk sizes are determined by the type of data that is being multiplexed; file system data and database data. 

  • If the first backup is a file system type backup, all other backups joining multiplexing will have a chunk size of 4 GB.
  • If the first backup is a database type backup, all other backups joining multiplexing will have a chunk size of 16 GB.

Multiplexed data is aged when all jobs (multiplexed) on a single chunk have met the defined retention rules of their associated storage policy copy.

To enable data multiplexing in a storage policy copy:

  1. From the CommCell Browser, right click the storage policy copy whose storage policy you want to enable data multiplexing, then click Properties.
  2. From the Media tab of the Copy Properties dialog box, select Enable Multiplexing.
  3. Select the number of subclients whose data will be multiplexed to the same media from the Multiplexing Factor list box.
  4. Click OK to save your changes.
To enable data multiplexing for Oracle jobs, click Control Panel, and then select Job Management. Then click Enable Multiplexing for Oracle.
Refer to Data Multiplexing.
Silo Storage When an active Silo store has been sealed and moved to storage, all the backup jobs that went to that store must meet the retention rules (defined in their associated storage policy copy) for the store to become aged. Once all of the jobs have met their retention criteria, the entire store is considered ageable, and the Silo (tape) backup jobs are then aged. The tape designated for the Silo storage is then refreshed and available for re-use. Extended retention rules are not supported on Storage Policy Copies configured for Silo Storage. Refer to Silo Storage.
Cloud Deduplication Pruning If you have cloud storage configured with deduplication, the pruning of the data will not be done until the store is sealed and all the backup jobs associated to that store meets the retention rules for the store to become aged.  
Disabled Jobs If data aging is performed on a storage policy copy that has disabled jobs, these jobs are aged differently. If the disabled job is a full backup job, the entire cycle is marked as disabled. In this case, data aging does not count the disabled full backup as a valid cycle. If the disabled job is an incremental or differential backup and the full backup job is not disabled, the cycle is counted as a valid cycle. Refer to Storage Policy Copy Operations.

Schedule Data Aging Jobs

1. From the CommCell Console, right click the CommServe icon and click All Tasks | Data Aging.
2.
  • Select Schedule.
  • Click OK.
3. Select the appropriate scheduling options and click OK.
4. Data aging operation will execute according to the specified schedule. You can track the progress of the job from the Job Controller window. When the job has completed, the Job Controller displays Completed.

Manage Data Aging Jobs

Enable / Disable Data Aging Jobs in a Storage Policy

  1. From the CommCell Browser, navigate to Policies | Storage Policies,
  2. Right-click the storage policy and click Properties.
  3. Click the Retention tab.
  4. Deselect Enable Data Aging.
  5. Click OK.

Suspend / Resume Data Aging Jobs

Suspend Data Aging Activity on a Client

1. From the CommCell Browser, navigate to Storage Resources | Libraries, right-click the Media By Groups | New Media Group | Spare Media Group.
2.
  • Specify No_Media.
  • Select Default Media Type.
3. Right-click the client computer and click Properties.
4.
  • Click the Activity Control tab.
  • Clear Enable Data Management and Enable Data Recovery and then click OK.
5. Click Tools | Control Panel.
6. Click Job Management.
7. Select Queue Jobs if activity is disabled.
8. If any jobs are run after the Jobs of activity is disabled, you can see in the Job Controller that the jobs status Queued.
9. 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  

Resume Client Activity

1. From the CommCell Browser, right-click the client computer and click Properties.
2.
  • Select Enable Data Management and Enable Data Recovery.
  • Click OK.

Enabling Restartability for Data Aging Jobs

  1. From the CommCell Browser, right-click the CommServe computer and click All Tasks | Data Aging.
  2. Click Advanced.
  3. Click the Job Retry tab.
  4. Select Enable Total Running Time and specify the job running time.
  5. Select Kill Running Job When Total Running Time Expires and specify the job running time.
  6. Click OK.

Data Retention Forecast and Compliance Report

To ensure only data intended for aging is actually aged, it is important to identify the data that will be aged based on the retention rules you have configured. You can do so by running the Data Retention Forecast and Compliance Report, which provides the following:

If this report displays data you do not intend to age, you must fine-tune your rules accordingly. Once you run a data aging job, the unintended data will be lost.

1.

From the CommCell Browser, click the Reports icon.

 
2. Expand Reports and select Data Retention Forecast and Compliance.
3. Click Run.
4. The report will display the data to be aged when the data aging job is run.