deleting a replicated agent

[Steve_S_]

Here's my scenerio.

I have replicated data from a server that was backed up by a SPA in a old test PureDisk installation.  The client wanted to seed the new SPA with the data as this was all production data and we are just creating a whole new SP with new version, hardware etc.

The new SPA shows the replicated agent [R] servername and I get that.  I have uninstalled the old client from this server and installed the new client pointing to the new SPA.  So now I have two server agents listed in the mgmt console GUI for this server.... [R]servername and servername.  Now that I have the new client installed I no longer need the replicated agent and I want to remove it.When I try to remove it I get a prompt warning me that if I delete this agent all the data associated with the data selection policy will be deleted and can no long be restored from.

I have 2 questions:

1. I thought data was never deleted from the SP until a removal policy was run.  I thought data was only flagged as to be deleted until this removal policy did it's thing.  Is this not accurate?  I find it hard to believe that just deleting a data selection policy would actually delete data and become unrecoverable.

2. If the data is really deleted when a data selection policy is delete is this also true for a replicated data selection policy?

Anyone have any thoughts?  Thanks.

Steve S.

[Tom_Burrell · Accepted solution]

Well, it will be unrecoverable BY THAT AGENT NAME, so it's only an issue here if you need to recover something that was present in the [R] agent and gone by the time you put the new agent in.  Otherwise you won't affect your new agent's data.

Restores are based on client name, then data selection- so if they aren't on the list how could you even select the data via the interface?

I run a special "retirement party" for anything I'm removing where I export the data to Netbackup prior to deletion.  

I created a "disabled agent" department, which helps flag those agents as out of service, then after 30 days or so I export and delete.

[Steve_S_]

Thanks Tom for the good information!

Steve