vCenter Database retention Policy when does it take effect

[stan12345]

I am running low on my vcenter space. If I set database retention policy to 6 months, does it take immediately remove tasks and events older than 6 months, or does it just mark any new task and event to be deleted in 6 months. Just wanted to see if i would get any immediate space savings. 

[a_nut_in]

Hi Stan,

The DB retention policy will not help as the DB would be purged when the next roll up jobs and purge scripts are configured to run.

You could try a manual purge of data beyond a certain specified date

Mware KB: Purging old data from the database used by vCenter Server

The script can be configured to contain data for number of days you want to retain data for

<snip>

1. Modify event.maxAge to 30, and modify the event.maxAgeEnabled value to true.
2. Modify task.maxAge to 30, and modify the task.maxAgeEnabled value to true.

</snip>

Regards

a

[stan12345]

thanks A,  how often does vcenter run the purge scripts? is it an automatic process or configurable?

i can run the manual purge as well.

[a_nut_in · Accepted solution]

Hey Stan,

Purge scripts are set to run once a year, once a month, once a week and once a day as there are four procedures that run both to collect and purge data. You can manually run the purge by just right running the default stored procedures in SQL Management Studio after connecting to your Virtual Center DB and that would actually run fine, and I am guessing the max.Age parameters are what you would already find set to 6 months in the scripts if you already have made the changes in the GUI!

Thanks

a

[stan12345]

thanks!