Enterprise Vault, Centera and Retention Categories

[NaturesRevenge]

We implemented EV9 a couple years ago, utilized professional services, and took the recommendation of our internal storage team to utilize EMC Centera for our storage needs. Please allow me to bounce a couple thoughts off the big brains who watch this forum. :)

We are running Centera in governance mode. Retention calculations on Centera content rely on ARCHIVE date, not CREATION date.

We use EVPM to EV-enable new Exchange mailboxes; along with that are several subfolders we create in the mailbox that have retention categories assigned to them. Associated with these EV retention categories are Centera retention categories, ranging from one year to seven. I'm hearing conflicting opinions on what occurs to messages in the Vault that are moved around between subfolders with retention categories. One opinion is that this message inherits the current retention; the other (very concerning) opinion is that Centera honors permanently whatever the GREATEST retention value was for the life of the message.

If the latter opinion is true, what about messages that were at any point protected by a litigation hold in Discovery Accelerator? Is the retention value then infinite with no possiblity of delete?

Who's in charge of actions on data within Centera? My understanding is that Centera does not act on anything by itself; instead, it only does exactly what Enterprise Vault tells it to do. I've been told that you cannot access Centera content directly. It requires an application for access.

Hopefully I'm just overcomplicating all of this. I appreciate anyone's comment!

AJ

[GabeV]

Hi NR,

This technote have more details about EMC retentions with Enterprise Vault:

How Retention values for Archived items from Enterprise Vault (EV) are applied, identified and enforced in a Centera Storage Device using EMC Governance or Compliance Edition Plus Models.
http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH78150

In regards to your question about the DA legal holds over the archived data, this is a configuration at the SQL server level. If the retention category is 3 years but the item has been in hold for 4 years, Enterprise Vault will not expired the item since there is a legal hold over the archived item. However, in the EMC device, the item can be deleted. Once the legal hold is removed, then Storage Expiry, for instance, will remove the item from the storage.

When a retention is applied to an email, let's say 7 years, EMC will apply that retention. You can move the EV shortcut from one folder to another with a 5 years retention and this retention category will be updated in the SQL server. However, in the EMC device, it will keep the 7 years retention.

I hope this helps to clarify your concern.

[EV_Ajay]

Hi,

As per my understanding the retention category always taken whichever is higher.

[GabeV]

Hello NR,

Do you have any updates on this thread? Do you need more assistance regarding this topic? If not, please mark the post that best solves your problem as the answer to this thread.

[NaturesRevenge]

Taking a single message as an example:

The message gets moved to EV and during its life, it is assigned a retention value of 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 7 years, 5 years, 3 years, 7 years, and today - has a retention value of 3 years.

What is its true retention value today? 3 years or 7 years?

[NaturesRevenge · Accepted solution]

We met with EMC. Governance mode of a Centera appliance remembers the greates retention value. There's a process where you can run a privileged delete and/or a garbage collection routine, but the original metadata pointer to the binary will always exist until the largest assigned retention value has expired. Go ahead and mark this thread as closed, or resolved, or whatever.

[DavidO]

If you do decide you'd like to have the retention completely controlled by Enterprise Vault (and not governed by the Centera), we have a product which will use the Centera 'privileged delete' feature and reset the retention on the Centera to 0.  Enterprise Vault will then be able to expire the item based on the EV Retention category.

See link to the product page:

http://www.vault-solutions.com/ourproducts/enterprise-vault-centera-reprocess.html

Dave

Vault Solutions LLC