Manage image expiration

You can force the expiration of an image earlier than its scheduled date and time in order to gain storage space and potentially reduce storage costs.

You can manage image expiration in the following ways:

• From the Application page to expire all images in an application.

• From the Table view to expire one or more images in an application.

• From the Timeline view to expire only the selected image.

Image expiration limitations

When you are configuring for image expiration, consider the following limitations:

• Certain image types cannot be expired. If you select an image that belong to any of the types listed, you may not see the Manage Expiration option. You cannot expire images that are of type:

  • failover
  • prep-mount
  • streamsnap
  • syncback
  • liveclone

• Images with the immutability date property configured to a later date, cannot be configured for expiration before the specified immutability period is over.

For more information on immutability and enforced retention, see Configuring Advanced Settings: Policy Settings Override.

Managing image expiration in the applications page

Use the following instructions to manage image expiration for all images in an application:

1. Click the App Manager tab and select Applications from the drop-down menu.
2. Right-click the application that has the images you want to expire and select Manage Expiration.
3. Optional. Disable the Enable Scheduled Expiration option. When you disable this option, images that would have expired based on the configured schedule can no longer expire.
4. Optional: Disable the Enable Log Expiration option. When you disable this option, a database log data that would have expired based on the configured retention can no longer expire.

5. Select from the following expiration options:

   • Expire all images now: When the scheduler runs next, expiration jobs start for these images.
   • Set new expiration date: lets you select a new expiration date and time.
   • Extend retention by: lets you extend the expiration by the number of days or weeks or months or years you specify.
   • Shorten retention by: lets you shorten the expiration by the number of days or weeks or months or years you specify.
   • Set all existing images to never expire: configure the images to never expire. By default, images that are set to never expire, will have an expiration date set to 2100-01-01. The Copy Data List view has an Expiration filter option Never that shows images configured to never expire. For information on the Copy Data List view, see Accessing Copy Data List View of an Image.

6. Click Apply.

Manage image expiration from table view

Use the following instructions to manage image expiration of one or more images from the table view:

1. Click the App Manager tab and select Applications from the drop-down menu. The Applications page opens.
2. Right-click the application that has the image(s) you want to expire and select Access. The Timeline view opens.

3. Select the Tableoption. The Images page opens listing captured images in the table view.

4. Click one or more images, and then select Manage Expiration from the lower right corner of the page. Alternately, right-click the application and select Manage Expiration. The Manage Expirations dialog opens.

5. Select from the following expiration options:

   • Expire Now: when the scheduler runs next, expiration jobs start for these images.
   • Set new expiration date: lets you select a new expiration date and time.
   • Extend retention by: (default option) lets you extend the expiration by the number of days, weeks, months, or years you specify.
   • Shorten retention by: lets you shorten the expiration by the number of days, weeks, months, or years you specify.

   When specifying a shortened retention period, the new expiration date for some images may actually be a date in the past. In this situation, the dialog will list all images that will have an expiration date set in the past along with a warning that these images will expire immediately.

   • Set to never expire: configures the images to never expire. By default, images that are set to never expire will have an expiration date set to 2100-01-01. The Copy Data List view has an Expiration filter option Never that shows images configured to never expire. For information on the Copy Data List view, see the Accessing Copy Data List View of an Image.

6. Select one of the following Log retention options. This option displays only when the selected backup image has associated logs.

   • Do not change log retention: select this option if you don't want to change log retention period. By default, this option is selected.
   • Linked to database image: select this option to retain database logs until the database image expires and the logs are past the configured log retention period.
   • Independent from database image: select this option to retain all database logs for the selected database images, regardless of when they expire.

7. Click Apply.

Manage image expiration in the timeline view of the access page

Use the following instructions to manage expiration of a specific image from the timeline ramp view:

1. Click the App Manager tab and select Applications from the drop-down menu. The Applications page opens.
2. Right-click the application that has the image(s) you want to expire and select Access. The Access page opens listing captured images in the Timeline view.

3. Select the image you want to manage expiration for, then select Manage Expiration from the menu options. The Manage Expiration page opens.

4. Select from the following expiration options:

   • Expire images now: forces the expiration job to run at that time and expire the image.
   • Set new expiration date: lets you select a new expiration date and time.
   • Extend retention by: (default option) lets you extend the expiration by the number of days or weeks or months or years you specify.
   • Shorten retention by: lets you shorten the expiration by the number of days or weeks or months or years you specify.
   • Set existing images to never expire: configure the images to never expire. By default, images that are set to never expire will have an expiration date set to 2100-01-01. The Copy Data List view has an Expiration filter option "Never" that shows images configured to never expire. For information on the Copy Data List view, see Accessing Copy Data List View of an Image.
   • Do not change expiration date: Select this option if you don't want to change the expiration date for a backup image of a database. This option is displayed only when the selected backup image has associated database logs.

5. Select one of the following Log retention options. This option displays only when the selected backup image has associated logs.

   • Independent from database image (default): select this option to retain all database logs for the selected database images, regardless of when they expire.
   • Linked to database image: select this option to retain database logs until the database image expires and the logs are past the configured log retention period. If a dependency between the image and its log images has been established, this option is selected by default.

6. Click Apply.

Force expiration of an active image

To force the expiration of an active image:

1. Click the App Manager tab and select Applications from the drop-down menu. The Applications page opens.
2. Select the application or VM that contains the captured image that you want to expire, then choose Access from the drop-down list at the bottom right corner of the Applications page. The Access page opens listing captured images in the Timeline ramp view. Image types that support expiration include Snapshot, Remote Snapshot (StreamSnap images), and OnVault. For more information about the Timeline view, see Accessing the Timeline View of an Image for details.
3. Select the image that you want to expire, then select Expire from the drop-down list. The Expire page opens.
4. Click Submit to expire the image.