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Data Aging on disabled clients or subclients based on days only retention

  • October 21, 2021
  • 6 replies
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Hi,

In our environment we want to free up disk library space by aging off the data for disabled subclients which might still be eating up the space due to their backup cycle retention criteria not met. I came across this setting in control panel>Media Management Configuration>Data Aging (“Ignore cycle retention on backup activity disabled subclients”) which if we set to 1 should clean up data based on days only retention set in the corresponding storage policy and ignore its cycles retention portion for the disabled subclients.

I would like to know if anyone has used this setting in their environment and if any risks associated with this setting like data aging taking more time to complete or causing performance issues in commcell due to first run of data aging after enabling this setting?

Also if later on we enable the backup activity for that subclient will the existing backups (which still have not met days only criteria)  and any new backups, will they again start following cycle + days retention for that subclient?

Thanks,

Nazish

 

Best answer by Mike Struening RETIRED

Great question, and welcome @Nazish !

You understand the setting correctly: once enabled, you are telling the Commserve to no longer expect new Full backups, so to age purely on Days of retention.

Now, the danger/risk here is that you can easily find yourself with NO backups….so be sure you have the jobs somewhere for as long as you require.

If you re-enable those subclients, then the setting will no longer apply to those enabled subclients (and Data Aging/Retention will work normally).

One tip I like to share for any considered change to retention is this:

  1. Make sure Data Aging is not set to run any time soon (don’t disable Data Aging at the Commserve level because it will affect our next steps).
  2. Make your proposed change
  3. Run a Data Retention Forecast and Compliance Report on the affected Storage Policies/Copies
  4. Check the report and see what will now age
  5. Do you like what you see?
    1. If yes, leave the setting be
    2. If not, revert back

This is a really handy way to see the impact of your proposed plan and avoids you being without the data from the changes!

Let me know if that helps!

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6 replies

Mike Struening
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Great question, and welcome @Nazish !

You understand the setting correctly: once enabled, you are telling the Commserve to no longer expect new Full backups, so to age purely on Days of retention.

Now, the danger/risk here is that you can easily find yourself with NO backups….so be sure you have the jobs somewhere for as long as you require.

If you re-enable those subclients, then the setting will no longer apply to those enabled subclients (and Data Aging/Retention will work normally).

One tip I like to share for any considered change to retention is this:

  1. Make sure Data Aging is not set to run any time soon (don’t disable Data Aging at the Commserve level because it will affect our next steps).
  2. Make your proposed change
  3. Run a Data Retention Forecast and Compliance Report on the affected Storage Policies/Copies
  4. Check the report and see what will now age
  5. Do you like what you see?
    1. If yes, leave the setting be
    2. If not, revert back

This is a really handy way to see the impact of your proposed plan and avoids you being without the data from the changes!

Let me know if that helps!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening
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  • Nazish
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  • October 25, 2021
Mike Struening wrote:

Great question, and welcome @Nazish !

You understand the setting correctly: once enabled, you are telling the Commserve to no longer expect new Full backups, so to age purely on Days of retention.

Now, the danger/risk here is that you can easily find yourself with NO backups….so be sure you have the jobs somewhere for as long as you require.

If you re-enable those subclients, then the setting will no longer apply to those enabled subclients (and Data Aging/Retention will work normally).

One tip I like to share for any considered change to retention is this:

  1. Make sure Data Aging is not set to run any time soon (don’t disable Data Aging at the Commserve level because it will affect our next steps).
  2. Make your proposed change
  3. Run a Data Retention Forecast and Compliance Report on the affected Storage Policies/Copies
  4. Check the report and see what will now age
  5. Do you like what you see?
    1. If yes, leave the setting be
    2. If not, revert back

This is a really handy way to see the impact of your proposed plan and avoids you being without the data from the changes!

Let me know if that helps!

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your reply. Is it also possible to prune the data by ignoring the cycle part for specific storage policy instead of enabling it at commcell level and apply to all storage policies?

Thanks,

Nazish

Mike Struening
Vaulter
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Sure, you can set the cycle count to 0, though the same risk applies….

say you have a client that for whatever reason hasn’t had a successful backup in X days.  If your retention is X or less, and you have 0 cycles, you’ll lose the whole chain of backups (and have nothing on that copy).

You can absolutely use the same trick I mentioned above about setting the change, running the report, then seeing what will prune as a result.

Let me know if you have any further questions :nerd:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening
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    drPhil
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  • Amic
  • Bit
  • 2 replies
  • December 5, 2022

Hi,

I know this is an old thread but I hope someone here can help.

Say for example we have a subclient associated to a storage policy that have 3 copies:

  • 2 copies on disk with no extended retention but has 14 days 1 cycle retention and
  • 1 copy to tape with extended retention - basic retention 30days 0 cycles, extended retention monthly full 1 yr, yearly full 7 yrs

Having the said setup, if I were to  enable Control panel>Media Management Configuration>Data Aging (“Ignore cycle retention on backup activity disabled subclients”), does the aging/ignoring of cycles only happens on the 2 copies on disk or does it apply to the tape copy as well?

Thanks in advance!

Mike Struening
Vaulter
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No worries, @Amic !

Technically, that setting covers ALL copies anywhere in the CommCell, though the tape copy is already at 0 cycles so it doesn’t really change or affect anything.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-struening
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    Amic
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  • Amic
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  • December 7, 2022
Mike Struening wrote:

No worries, @Amic !

Technically, that setting covers ALL copies anywhere in the CommCell, though the tape copy is already at 0 cycles so it doesn’t really change or affect anything.

Thank you so much!

Mike Struening
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