Retention periods

IBM Spectrum® Protect policies manage the retention periods for the Write Once Read Many (WORM) FILE volumes. With the retention periods set for the NetApp SnapLock file volume or IBM Spectrum Scale immutable fileset, IBM Spectrum Protect can efficiently manage the data in data retention server storage pools.

Tip: You can provide WORM-protected file volumes for data retention servers by using the NetApp SnapLock licensed feature or by using IBM Spectrum Scale immutable filesets. With both options, you can use IBM Spectrum Protect to set a retention date for files and to commit a file to WORM state.
The retention of some files might exceed the retention time for the WORM FILE volume that they are stored on. You might have to move some files to another volume to ensure that the files are stored on WORM media. Some objects on the volume might have to be retained longer than other objects on the volume for the following reasons:
  • The objects are bound to management classes with different retention times.
  • The objects cannot be removed because of a deletion hold.
  • The objects are waiting for an event to occur before expiration.
  • The retention period for a copy group is increased, requiring a longer retention time than the time that is specified in the SnapLock feature or immutable fileset when the WORM FILE volume was committed.

To manage a WORM FILE volume by retention time, you must issue the DEFINE STGPOOL command and specify RECLAMATIONTYPE=SNAPLOCK. In this way, you define a storage pool to servers that are enabled for IBM Spectrum Protect for Data Retention.

You cannot update the RECLAMATIONTYPE parameter to a value of THRESHOLD at a later point. When a storage pool for data retention servers is defined, a verification process is run to ensure that the directories that are specified in the device class are WORM volumes. When a file class is defined and storage pools are created with the reclamation type of SNAPLOCK, all volumes must be WORM volumes or the operation fails. If a device class is updated to contain extra directories and storage pools for data retention servers are assigned to the device class, the same verification process is run to ensure that all directories are WORM volumes.

Available retention periods

Three retention periods are available for the NetApp SnapLock and IBM Spectrum Scale immutable fileset features. The retention periods must be configured correctly so that the IBM Spectrum Protect server can properly manage WORM data that is stored on NetApp SnapLock volumes or in IBM Spectrum Scale immutable filesets.

The IBM Spectrum Protect server sets the retention period for data that is stored on NetApp SnapLock volumes or in immutable filesets, based on the values in the copy group for the data that is archived. The NetApp file server must not conflict with the ability of the IBM Spectrum Protect server to set the retention period. The preferred method is to configure the following settings for retention periods in the NetApp file server:

  • Minimum Retention Period. Set the higher value: either 30 days or the minimum number of days that is specified by any copy group (by using a NetApp SnapLock file server or IBM Spectrum Scale immutable fileset for WORM FILE storage) for the data retention period.
  • Maximum Retention Period. Leave the default value of 30 years. This retention period allows the IBM Spectrum Protect server to set the actual volume retention period based on the settings in the archive copy group.
  • Default Retention Period. Set to 30 days. If you do not set this value and you do not set the maximum retention period, each volume's retention period is set to 30 years. If this occurs, the IBM Spectrum Protect server cannot manage expiration and reuse of WORM-protected FILE volumes. As a result, no volume can be reused for 30 years.