VM backup having Big Data backup content. Not sure what that is.

@Jass Gill 

Please go through the BOL below

https://documentation.commvault.com/2023e/expert/10708_indexing_overview.html

====================================

This is to inform you that index backups do not follow the Storage policy retention rules to age out. 

The index has its own cleanup rules and Please go through the BOL to understand how Index backup cleanup happens at backupset level  and Subclient level

https://documentation.commvault.com/11.24/expert/138590_index_cleanup_and_compaction_operations_indexing_version_2.html  

Index Cleanup

The system retains the active index in the MediaAgent's index cache indefinitely so that it can be accessed during operations such as browse and find, and reporting. During data backup jobs, the system writes new action logs into the index, thus keeping the active index continuously updated.

Note: The system never deletes an active index from the index cache during normal operations. However, if a user deletes a backup set from a client, the system deletes the index associates with that backup set.

When the system ages off backed-up data via retention rules, the system flags that data and deletes its associated metadata from the active index. This process, called compaction, decreases the size of the index and frees up storage space

Subclient Level Indexing - Index Cache Cleanup

========================================

Index Database Backup Cleanup

The system retains and deletes index database backups according to the following rules:

You can have more than three versions of index database backups for each subclient. Each index database backup has an index of different sets of backup jobs.

These index database backups are aged as follows:

At any time, the system attempts to retain a minimum of the three latest versions of index database backups for each subclient.

An index database backup is aged only if all of the backups jobs in it are aged.

If an associated backupset is deleted, all of the index database backups of all of the subclients will also be deleted.

Backupset Level Indexing - Index Cache Cleanup

========================================

If no secondary copy is associated with the IndexBackup storage policy, the three most recent backed-up versions of each index (per storage policy) are retained on the primary backup storage. When a fourth backed-up version of a particular index is retained, the oldest existing backed-up version of that same index is deleted from the backup storage when the cleanup operation is performed.

If a secondary copy is associated with the IndexBackup storage policy, retention of index backups proceeds according to the following rules:

1.If all index data on the primary copy gets copied to secondary storage, the latest three index backups are retained on both the primary storage and the secondary storage

2.An index backup on the primary copy gets deleted only when more than three index backups exist on the secondary storage.

3.If only part of an index backup on the primary copy gets copied to secondary storage, the secondary storage retains the latest three full index backups that were previously copied to it. Index backups present only on primary storage are not deleted from primary storage until more than three index backups exist on the primary storage.

Index Log Cleanup

Index logs are cleaned up after the following two conditions are met:

• The index logs are played back into the index database.
• The index database is backed up.

Note: If index database backups are disabled, index logs will not be cleaned up. This can result in unexpected index cache disk usage.