Tape Retention

Tape retention is part of your backup schedule. Tape retention is the time that information about a job is saved in the Catalog and that backed up data is saved on a tape or disk. It is important to retain data long enough so that it’s available if needed, but it is also important to manage limited tape and disk resources. You must select your tape retention periods carefully, with your entire backup scheme in mind.

DPX checks for retention period expiration as part of the Catalog condense operation. If you do not perform a Catalog condense, then tapes will not expire. It is recommended that you perform a Catalog condense on a regular basis.

Every job can have a different retention period associated with it, so a single tape may contain many jobs with many retention periods. A tape will expire (that is, the status changed from Full or Appendable to Empty) if all jobs on the tape expire by reaching their retention period expirations.