IBM i File System Agent: Data Aging

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.

By default, all backup data is retained infinitely.

Best Practice: Change the retention of your data based on your needs.

From the CommCell Browser, navigate to Policies > Storage Policies >StoragePolicy.
Right-click the StoragePolicyCopy and click Properties.
On the Copy Properties dialog box, click the Retention tab.
Under Basic Retention Rules for All Backups, click Retain For.
Enter the number of days to retain the data.
Enter the number of cycles to retain the data.
Click OK.

The Confirm Basic Retention dialog box is displayed.
Click Yes.
From the CommCell Console, click the Reports tab.
Click the Forecast icon.

On the Report Selection dialog box, under Reports, Data Retention Forecast and Compliance is selected by default.
Click Run.

The 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, identify the data that will be aged based on the retention rules that you have configured. This report should include only the data you intend to age.

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

After you run a data aging job, the data will be pruned.
From the CommCell Console, right click the <CommServe> icon, point to All Tasks, and click Data Aging.

On the Data Aging Options dialog box, under Job Initiation, Immediate is selected by default to run the job immediately.
Click OK.

You can track the progress of the job from the Job Controller window. When the job is completed, in the Job Controller the Status will be displayed as Completed.
Make sure that the job completes successfully. If the job did not complete successfully, rerun the job.

Extended Retention Rules

Extended retention rules allow you to keep specific full backups for an additional period.

Extended retention rules can be used in the following circumstances:

If you have a single drive tape library
If you want to create a hierarchical retention scheme (grandfather-father-son tape rotation)

Extended retention rules allow you to define three additional "extended" retention periods for full backups. 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.

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.

In all other cases, we recommend you use Auxiliary Copy for extended storage since it creates another physical copy of the data, thereby reducing the risk of data loss due to media failure.

Setting Up the Extended Retention Rules

Use the following steps for setting up the extended retention rules:

Right-click the storage policy copy and click Properties.
On the CopyProperties dialog box, click the Retention tab.
Set the basic retention rules by clicking Retain for and entering the number of days and cycles appropriate for your organization.
Set the extended retention rules as follows:
1. Click the For button.
2. Enter the number of Days Total to retain the backup.
3. Click the Keep drop-down list, and select the desired backup criteria (e.g., Monthly Full, Weekly Full).
4. Click the Grace Days drop-down list and select the number of days (e.g., 2).
  
  This allows you to consider the additional number of days along with the Extended Retention rule. For example, if the last full backup job fails with in the defined extended retention criteria, then the next full backup job that ran in the specified grace days will be selected for retention.
Repeat Step 4 to configure additional extended retention.
Click OK.

For more information, see Data Aging - Advanced.