Change Retention Policy on already archived items

[And_Ols]

Hi.

Is there any chance to afterwards an archiving have taken place, possible to change the retention policy?

Kindly

And Ols

[Michael_Bilsbor]

HI,

As far as I'm aware, no you can't do this.

[vernon_lai]

According to admin console help:

If you later modify a Retention Category, the changes are retrospective. For example, if you have a Retention Category called Customer Accounts with a Retention Period of 5 years and you change the Retention Period to 10 years, then items that have been already archived with the Customer Accounts Retention Category will be retained for a minimum of 10 years.

[And_Ols]

Totally two different answers. Please send in a judge.

[Michael_Bilsbor]

Hi,

Sorry my fault should have really read the question better!

Yes, you can certainly change the details of a retention policy which is assigned to items. So you can change it's value and you can even change it's name.

Is that what you were asking?

[Jason_Szeto]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but when an item gets archived it gets stamped with your current retention category. Once that category is assigned to that archived item, there is no way of switching to another retention category.

What can be done is you can modify the current retention category period. So for example, I archive something with the Business retention category. That item will forever have the business category but I can modify the Business retention to change it from 2 years to 5 years and back to 2 years if I wanted to.

In special cases like Centera which are compliant devices. Once you set a retention, it's set forever. They only thing you can do is extend retention periods.

[And_Ols]

This last answer is what I have belived was the fact. By now I am not really sure. What is the Verita/Symantecs answer. Will a change of the retentionperiod, affect the time it stays in the archive. My opinion is no. Lets say I have a retention period set to 5 years,and some mails get archived with that retention category. If I then change the retentionperiod to 1 years, will those mails be removed from the store after 1 or 5 years? Lets say the opposite? If I have my 5 years retentioncategory and change that to 10 years. What will be the effect of that. Will those mails be removed from the vault after 5 or 10 years?

In the manual you can read that the settings are retrospective. But will it work for both settings. Let say I by mistake change the retentionperiod to 5 days? Will the archived Items be removed after 5 days then?

And Ols

[Michael_Bilsbor]

Hi,

When an item is archived it is archived with a 'id' to identify the retention policy assigned to it.
The calculation of when an item should be deleted is done in expiry. It does the calculations in real time so whatever the values are set for the retention policy when the item is examined for deletion is what will take affect.

I think Centera is a but more complicated but you're not asking about that...

So if you archvied an item when the policy was 5 years
and then after 18 months you changed it to 1 year then the item would be deleted by the next expiry run etc.

If you archived an item with 1 year rentetion and after 6 months changed the policy to be 5 years then it'd be in another 4 and a half years before the item would be deleted.

[Mike_Dowling]

I just want to add a little to this thread since some may use an EMC Centera. A Centera essentially has two logical modes, Basic Mode (retention is setable but can be overridden, deletes are allowed regardless of application retention), and Compliance, where retention is automatically set and can't be altered. There's a third Compliance Plus which allows zero privileged deletes.

HOWEVER in EV when setting up a Vault Store partition if you select under retention for the Centera to get it's retention from EV "For All Centera Models", you will NOT be able to do a privileged delete on those items though EV. The Clips will get the retention from the EV console. For instance we had a retention of 5 years, and the Vault Store Partition was set to "For all Centera models". Now every clip we have archived can not be deleted for five years. Even though our Centera is in Basic Edition.

Essentially when you set up that Vault Store partition, if you select "For all Centera Models" you turn your 'Basic Edition Centera', into a Compliance Plus Edition Centera (EMC can delete the Clip, however through the EV application you cannot, so priveleged deletes work using the Content Address, but not through the application using the SSID).

It's very dangerous as we have had some of our Vault Store partitions created with the "for all Centera models" setting, and now we are completely unable to delete the data. IMO this is very dangerous and EV doesn't do enough to warn the user of the implications of setting this check box. Be very careful when an EMC Centera, for future reference set in the Vault Store Partition to "NEVER". If you want to use the Centera for your retention, then do it through the CLA to the Centera.

[Aaron_Mears]

More fodder...archived ojected are stamped with a retention category, which is managed in the Admin Console. You are really revising the definition of the policy, not applying a new retention category to replace the category that was already in use.

If you change the definition of the retention category the EV Expiry timing will be affected, but the objects true eligibility to be expired may not really change depending on the Vault Store Partion setup and Centera Mode.

Aaron

[blueturtle]

Your explanation is the clearest/best I have read/found so far and fits my situation

If I could ask

my vault stores are on replicating centeras- basic mode

I only want EV to handle my retention to minimize confusion

I have my mail and FSA  partitions set to never
my journaling vault store needs to be WORM compliant or atleast
not able to be deleted except through retention expiry

I have that one set to all centera models to prevent delete

From what you explained long ago it appears I have set mine up correctly with how I intended it to be which is a relief

My concern and confusion regarding retention categories and centera I am shaky on

If I keep the same retention category but adjust length either shorter or longer does this change all vaulted mail to the new retention? Does Centera treat it differently or based on my partition settings am I able to shorten or lenghten
if I need to and apply it to the entire archive?

Any advice would be appreciated

Thank  you