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12 managing data retention and validation, Overview, Data retention – HP StoreAll Storage User Manual

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12 Managing data retention and validation

The data retention and validation feature is intended for sites that need to archive read-only files
for business purposes. Data retention ensures that files cannot be modified or deleted for a specific
retention period. Data validation scans can be used to ensure that files remain unchanged.

IMPORTANT:

The data retention and validation feature requires that the agile management

console be configured on all file serving nodes in the cluster.

Overview

Data retention

To use data retention, it must be enabled on a file system. When you enable data retention, you
can specify a retention profile that includes minimum, maximum, and default retention periods that
specify how long a file must be retained.

Determining the files to manage with data retention

The files in the file system can be in the normal, Write-Once Read-Many (WORM), or
WORM-retained state. WORM files and WORM-retained files can be managed by data retention.
A WORM-retained file is a WORM file that has a retention period applied to it. The files differ in
this manner:

WORM files cannot be modified, but can be deleted at any time.

WORM-retained files cannot be modified, and cannot be deleted until the retention period
expires.

NOTE:

You can apply a legal hold to a WORM or WORM-retained file. The file then cannot be

deleted until the hold is released, even if the retention period has expired.

Before configuring a file system for data retention, you should determine the types of files you want
to manage and then set the default retention period accordingly.

If you want to manage both WORM (non-retained) files and WORM-retained files, set the
default retention period to zero.

If you want to manage only WORM-retained files, set the default retention period to a non-zero
value.

The following table summarizes the differences in normal, WORM, and WORM-retained files.

Modify or delete?

Retention period

atime setting

Permissions

File state

Can be modified
or deleted

Retention period has no effect

Not reset

Created read-only or
read-write

Normal

Cannot be
modified but can
be deleted

Default data retention period is set
to 0 seconds

Not reset

Manually set to read-only,
even if created read-only

WORM

Cannot be
modified or
deleted

Default data retention period is not
set to 0 seconds, or a specific data
retention period is applied to the
file

Set to a date in
the future

Manually set to read-only,
even if created read-only

WORM-
Retained

For WORM and retained files, the file's contents and the following file attributes cannot be modified:

File name (the file cannot be renamed or moved)

User and group owners

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Managing data retention and validation