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manatee's avatar
manatee
Level 6
8 years ago

what's the diff between "retention period" and "expiration date"?

NBU 7.6.0.3

first of all, apologies if i'm not selecting the right OS and version as i find it always reverts to AIX everytime i reply to a post.

anyway, i'm just about to change the retention period/date for a backup done last night and i noticed that i don't know the difference between "retention period" and "expiration date" or are they the same? because i saw in reports/images on media where the retention period is infinity yet it expires in one month. so how can something be infinite and expire in a month?

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    8 years ago
    With bpexpdate you can recalculate retention level or simply specify new expiration date.
    But yes, they are the same in effect.

    About Infinity and one month retention...
    You are using SLPs, right?
    Image retentions are explained in the intro paragraphs of SLP chapter in Admin Guide I.

    NBU wants to guarantee successful completion of image life cycle. For this reason, backup retention is set to Infinity until duplication (all secondary actions defined in SLP) have completed. At this point retention will be applied as per SLP config.

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  • manatee's avatar
    manatee
    Level 6
    8 years ago

    ok so i changed the expiry date to April 2017. when i checked in reports, the "retention period" is now one month whereas before it says infinity. but the "expiration date" is 6 months away (April 2017) which is what i want.

    based on the above, will my image on tape be still recoverable after 5 months? or do i need to change the "retention period" also?

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    8 years ago
    With bpexpdate you can recalculate retention level or simply specify new expiration date.
    But yes, they are the same in effect.

    About Infinity and one month retention...
    You are using SLPs, right?
    Image retentions are explained in the intro paragraphs of SLP chapter in Admin Guide I.

    NBU wants to guarantee successful completion of image life cycle. For this reason, backup retention is set to Infinity until duplication (all secondary actions defined in SLP) have completed. At this point retention will be applied as per SLP config.