Intelligent Retention

Intelligent Retention is a special kind of retention policy that is applied exclusively backup storages WITH a minimum storage duration policies.

The main purposes of Intelligent Retention are to reduce storage costs by avoiding so-called early data deletion fees (these early deletion fees are linked with minimum time periods of keeping data (minimum retention policy). If minimum periods are not reached or data was changed before that date, the storage provider may charge users for early deletion).

How It Works

Intelligent Retention works as follows: each time a backup plan is executed, backup storage parameters are checked and the retention period is adjusted in such a way that this full backup is kept on backup storage for a minimum period based on storage provider data deletion conditions. Backup storage parameters are analyzed automatically, if the retention period selected for the backup plan do not meet the minimum storage duration requirements this will be reported in the backup plan wizard to adjust the retention properly.

Simple Schedule

Advanced Schedule

The logic of Intelligent Retention points to the following:

• If a full backup was created within the minimum retention period, the next incremental backup is performed according to the schedule set in the backup plan
• If a full backup is kept in storage for more than the minimum retention period, and the early deletion fee is expired for this full backup, this backup can be purged for regular backup and a new Synthetic Full backup can be executed for Forever Forward Incremental. This Synthetic Full will include all incremental backups older than the retention period specified. After the successful creation of a new Synthetic Full backup, a previous full backup is deleted.

Refer to the Retention policy chapter for examples on how the retention policy works with enabled intelligent retention depending on early deletion fees in the storages.

Intelligent Retention Should Be Enabled

Intelligent Retention is enabled by default on the Retention Policy step of the backup wizard.

Wasabi Backup Storage Considerations

If you are an MSP360 customer and a Wasabi customer at the same time, you are eligible to reduce the minimum data retention period regardless of the pricing model you are using from standard 90 days to 30 days.

Refer to Change Minimum Retention Period for instrucrion on how to do this.