Event-based policy retention protection

All management classes with an archive copy group must specify a retention period, for example, the number of days that an archived object is stored on the server before being deleted.

Event-based policy provides the option of beginning the retention period either at the time the object is archived or at a later date when an activation event is sent to the server for that object.

Setting the Tivoli® Storage Manager copy group value RETINIT=CREATE starts the data retention period when the file is archived. Using the copy group value RETINIT=EVENT starts the data retention period when the server is notified that the event has occurred.

The following example demonstrates this concept:

The user has two files, create.file and event.file. The user has available two management classes; CREATE, with RETINIT=CREATE, and EVENT, with RETINIT=EVENT. Both management classes have a 60-day retention period. The user, on the same day, archives both files:

  dsmc archive create.file -archmc=CREATE 	
  dsmc archive event.file -archmc=EVENT

Ten days later, the user issues the set event -type=hold command for the create.file file, so the file cannot be deleted. On the same day the user issues the set event -type=activate for the event.file file. At this time, create.file has 50 days left on its retention period, and event.file has 60 days. If no other action is taken, create.file remains on the server forever, and event.file is expired 70 days after it was created (60 days after its event occurred). However, if 20 days after the initial archive, the user issues set event -type=release for the create.file file. Thirty days of its retention period have passed, so the file is expired in 30 days (the hold does not extend the retention period).

For information about the RETINIT copy group value, see the Tivoli Storage Manager server documentation.