SAP HANA  Data Aging

The Data Aging process performs the following 2 processes.

• Aging - marks the jobs that have exceeded retention as aged.

• Pruning - physically deletes eligible disk jobs, or recycles a tape when all jobs on it have been marked as aged.

When the data aging job runs, the data aging process compares the current storage policy copy retention settings to the jobs on storage. Any eligible job is marked as aged. The data that has aged can be pruned, depending on the jobs that are on disk or tape.

For the agent, the retention cycles are calculated both on the subclient as well as on the instance. Therefore, the backup jobs will not age until the data retention cycle for the instance and the data retention cycle for the cycle and subclient are met.

Retention Rules for Command Line Backups

The data aging features ages SAP HANA command line backups by the number of days, not cycles.

Retention Rules for CommCell Console Backups

CommCell Console backups follow the basic and extended retention rules

Getting Started

Data Aging is the process of removing old data from secondary storage to allow the associated media to be reused for future backups.

You can change the retention of your data based on your needs.

Basic Retention Rules

You can change the retention rules on a storage policy copy to a desired retention period.

Before you set up the retention rules, configure synchronous copies with a retention period that is greater than or equal to that of the primary copy.

Setting Up the Basic Retention Rule

1. From the CommCell Browser, expand Policies > Storage Policies > storage_policy.

2. Right-click the appropriate storage policy copy, and then click the Properties.

3. In the Copy Properties dialog box, on the Retention tab, under Basic Retention Rule for All Backups, click the Retain For, and then enter the number of days to retain the data.

   Note

   For database backups, you can retain data only based on the number of days.

4. Click OK.

5. In the Confirm Basic Retention dialog box, click Yes.

6. On the ribbon in the CommCell Console, on the Reports tab, click Forecast, and then click Run.

7. The Data Retention Forecast and Compliance report displays the data to be pruned when a data aging job is run.

   Note:

   • 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. Hence, ensure this report includes only the data you intend to age.

     If necessary, fine-tune your rules so that only the intended data is aged.

Running the Data Aging Job

1. From the CommCell Console, right click the CommServe node, click All Tasks > Data Aging.

2. In the Data Aging Options dialog box, in the Job Initiation area, define whether the data aging job runs immediately or if it will be scheduled.

3. Click OK.

   If you chose to run the job immediately, the data aging job starts now.

   If you chose to run the job according to a schedule, the data aging job runs according to the schedule that you defined.

   After data aging job is run, the data will be pruned from the storage.

Extended Retention Rules

Keep specific full or synthetic full backups for an additional period of time by using the extended retention rules.

Extended retention rules can be used in the following circumstances:

• If you have a single drive tape library

• If you create a hierarchical retention scheme (grandfather-father-son tape rotation)

Define three additional "extended" retention periods for full (or synthetic full) backups by using the extended retention rules. For example:

• You may want to retain your weekly full backups for 30 days.

• You may want to retain your monthly full backup for 90 days.

• You may want to retain your yearly full backup for 365 days.

In all other cases, use the auxiliary copy for extended storage as it creates another physical copy of the data, reducing the risk of data loss due to media failure.

For more information on configuring extended retention rules, see Configuring Extended Retention Rules.

Data Aging for Log Backups

The SAP HANA iDataAgent uses the command line to perform the data and log backup operations. A log backup will be linked to a full data backup operation based on the type of backup job.

Log backup jobs are command line jobs that are associated with a subclient. Logs are aged in days, but not cycles.

The following table determines the behavior and retention policy of log backups: