The Data Aging process performs the following 2 processes.
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Aging - marks the jobs that have exceeded retention as aged.
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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.
For jobs that are on disk:
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If the Managed Disk Space option is disabled, and there are no auxiliary copies dependent on the jobs, the jobs are pruned. This physically deletes the data from the disk.
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If the Managed Disk Space option is enabled, the jobs remain until the disk library reaches the upper watermark threshold defined in the Library Properties.
For jobs that are on tape media:
When all jobs on the tape are marked as aged, and there are no auxiliary copies dependent on the jobs, the tape is moved into a scratch pool and the data is overwritten when the tape is picked for new data protection operation. In this scenario, the data is not deleted and can still be recovered by browsing for aged data, until the tape label is overwritten.
Data Retention Rules
Data Retention rules can be defined as:
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Basic Retention Rules
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Extended Retention Rules
Basic Retention Rules
You can change the retention rules on a storage policy copy to a desired retention period.
Consider the following before setting up the retention rules:
- Configure synchronous copies with a retention period that is greater than or equal to that of the primary copy.
For more information on configuring basic retention rules, see Setting Up the Basic Retention Rules.
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:
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If you have a single drive tape library
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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:
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You may want to retain your weekly full backups for 30 days.
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You may want to retain your monthly full backup for 90 days.
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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.
Note
Oracle jobs that complete with errors are not eligible for extended retention rules.