Delete on recall

[kboorgu]

We are using EV FSA 9.0.1 and noticed that delete on recall feature is no longer available in this release.  

Is there any way to identify the archived files that do not have a matching placeholder in the file system and delete them from the archive? Or is it even possible to delete an archived file from the archive programatically, without using the archive explorer.

[AndrewB]

have a look at the Utilities.pdf in your EV documentation folder. there's a section there about FSAUtility and it sounds like "Deleting orphaned placeholders" on page 134 is what you're asking for.

[kboorgu]

Hi Andrew, I am not looking to delete the orphaned place holders, it is the other way around. I need to delete the orphaned archive files.

The issue here is, if a user recalls a file and then deletes it, the file in the archive remains until the retention period is expired. So, I need to find the files which donot have a placeholder and delete them from the archive.

[AndrewB]

sorry about that. i must have read one thing but my mind registered the opposite. not sure if what you're asking can be done programatically.

[MichelZ]

Yes, this can be done programmatically, I think. However, it is a lenghty operation, as it would have to go trough every item in the archive and then check if a placeholder still exists. Cheers

[kboorgu]

Thanks MichelZ, could you please let me know how this can be done.

[MichelZ · Accepted solution]

You would need a dev to do that, and you would need to "buy" the API Guide from Symantec.

Then you iterate trough the archive, and check every item if the placeholder still exists.

/Michel

[SHI-CRO]

I've had to do this in the past, but it wasn't with a ton of data.

What I did is use the new feature in the FSAUtility to do a bulk restore of placeholders (fsautility -b) and then I deleted the file archives after it was done.  Then I re-archived the shares.  Items without placeholders weren't recalled and then were deleted when the archive was deleted.

If you have a simple archiving setup, you could do this one share at a time.

[AndrewB]

i guess i should have included "...programatically without buying the API license and developing a custom tool" to my earlier post :)

[MichelZ]

Probably, yes...  You're out of luck then :)