Customizing a policy

You can customize existing policies to meet new or revised data retention requirements for your organization. Modifying a policy domain or copying an existing policy domain is a typical way to start customizing policy.

About this task

The key policy settings are in management classes. In the management classes, you can control both the number of backup versions and the number of days that backup versions are kept in server storage. When you use both types of controls, the policy is more complex. By controlling only the number of days that backup versions are kept, you can more simply define how long backed-up data is kept.

Ensure that the default management class in a policy domain has appropriate settings for data retention for most or all of the clients that are assigned to the domain. The retention settings in the default management class are applied to data when client operations do not specify a management class.

You can work on updates to a policy and save the changes until a later time. When you are satisfied that the draft changes are ready, you can activate the updated policy set to put the changes into effect.

Procedure

On the Overview page of the Operations Center, click the Services menu.
Select the policy domain and click Details. Click Policy Sets.
Click the Configure toggle so that you can update the settings.
Customize the settings in the management class.
1. Make selections for backup services. For example, update the following items so that inactive backup versions for the clients are retained for 30 days:
  - Backups: No limit
  - Keep Extra Backups: 30 days
  - Deleted Backups: 1
  - Keep Deleted Backups: No limit
2. Optional: Make selections for archive services. For example, change the Keep Archives setting to 1 year.
3. Click Save.
Optional: Click +Management Class to add a management class.
1. Make selections for the basic settings, and click Add.
2. Customize more settings in the new management class. For backup services, make selections in the following columns: Backup Destination, Backups, Keep Extra Backups, Deleted Backups, and Keep Deleted Backups. For archive services, make selections in the Archive Destination and Keep Archives columns.
3. Click Save.
In the Default column, ensure that an appropriate management class is selected as the default. The retention settings in the default management class are applied when client operations do not specify a management class. A management class can be specified when a client operation is run. A management class can also be specified in a client option file that is on the client system, or in a client option set that is defined on the server.
Activate the policy set by clicking Activate.
Assign client nodes to the new policy domain by either updating existing client nodes or registering new nodes.
- To add new clients to the policy domain, click +Client.
- To move an existing client to the policy domain, select the client, click Details, and then click the Properties tab. Select the new policy domain and click Save.
Data retention for the client that you assign to the policy domain is now controlled by that policy.
Requirement: If a client is running when you assign it to a new domain, you must stop and restart the client for the change to take effect.