PowerProtect Data Manager 19.12 Administration and User Guide

Removing expired backup copies

PowerProtect Data Manager deletes the backup copies of an asset automatically when the retention period of the copy expires.

Information about specifying retention periods for a protection policy objective is provided within the user guide for each asset type.

In order for an expired copy to be deleted, the asset must be managed by PowerProtect Data Manager and in one of the following states:

• Exclusion – The asset is assigned to an exclusion protection policy.
• Disabled – The asset is assigned to a disabled protection policy.
• Protected – The asset is assigned to an enabled protection policy.
• Previously Protected – The asset has been unassigned from a protection policy and has not yet been reassigned to another policy or assigned to an Exclusion policy.

For an asset assigned to either an exclusion or disabled protection policy, PowerProtect Data Manager deletes the expired backup copies for the asset when the following settings are set to true:

• expiredCopyDeletionEnabledForAssetInExclusionPolicy
• expiredCopyDeletionEnabledForAssetInDisabledPolicy

The expired copy deletion settings for exclusion and disabled protection policies are set to true by default. If either setting is set to false, PowerProtect Data Manager skips deletion of the expired backup copies. The PowerProtect Data Manager Public REST API documentation provides more information.

Expired copy cleanup occurs at 00:00 AM UTC each day. If a copy deletion fails, a warning alert appears in the audit log under Alerts > System.

You can monitor the progress of the expired copy removal job from the Jobs window.