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Hi All,

I have inherited a commvault setup where the retention policy is confusing me. An extended retention policy is in play:

 

What i am noticing is that monthly end backups are being retained for 2190 days rather than 365 (example shown in screenshot), can anyone explain why?

 

 

 

Hey @James Bowtell , and welcome to our community!

What you’re seeing here is definitely confusing at first.  Very common question, so you’re in good company!

What’s happening here is that the Extended Retention for Last Full of the Year is ALSO being applied to these backups.

Why you might ask?  Because Commvault has no guarantee that another full will run for this subclient (even if it is scheduled).  To be super safe, we mark the current last full backup as the last of its cycle (meaning last of the week, month, year, etc.) until it is replaced by a subsequent full.

Imagine if a subclient stopped running fulls unbeknownst to you.  You get a request for a file from a few years ago, and you look for a restore from that time period and there’s nothing there because the last backup of December never ran.

In the manner CV handles Extended Retention, you’ll have SOMETHING there.

Now what do you do about the confusion?  You can either set the Extended to use the FIRST backup of the time period, because once that Full runs, it’s not like a backup can run in the past.  Or you just keep in mind that you’ll see ‘extra’ extended retention on the latest fulls and ignore the descrepency.

Let me know if that helps!!


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