basic centera and retention

Hi Darmin, hope all is well.

Effectively, retention is not enforced in Centera Basis Edition.

Keep in mind, however, that Centera enforces whatever policies are set at the application layer. If none, our default retention policies will take over - only on Centera Governance (GE) or Compliance Edition Plus (CE+)

If by mistake an end-user - using the application archiving to Centera in Basic mode - is able to issue a delete against data that is under retention, “and the application allows such operation!” (given proper access rights granted at the application layer), the delete operation will be successful.

Nevertheless, if Centera is in Governance or Compliance Edition Plus, the request will be denied by Centera.

Bottom line is, Centera will be able to enforce application policies under a compliance mode, but in Basic mode the end user relies on the application to prevent such operations.

In any case, even in Basic mode, the only data path accessible to Centera, is through the application. And all operations are audited and logged.

The remaining features of Centera (data authenticity, data integrity, replication and failover, etc) are available regardless of the compliance mode.

If a customer later decides to license a Compliance mode, all legacy data will be immediately covered by the license.

A complete list of Centera papers is available at https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-5604 . Of particular interest is the paper on compliance http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h4497-centera-cmplnce-mdls-gvrnce-edtn-cmplnce-edtn-plus-wp.pdf

Hope this helps!

Jaime

BTW - Sometimes, deleting data that is still under retention should be allowed, and Centera in Governace Edition allows that by having the application leverage our "Privileged Delete" capabilities. A complete audit trail will be generated and one of the paramenters for the API call is a justification for such request.