Symantec Backup Exec

Enterprise Vault automatically deletes archived items when the item’s Enterprise Vault retention periods expire. An Enterprise Vault retention period indicates how long Enterprise Vault retains archived items before it deletes them.

The Backup Exec Migrator maintains existing Enterprise Vault retention periods for archived items when it migrates the archived items to tape. As a result, when an item’s data retention period expires, Enterprise Vault issues a command to delete the item from the storage tape that Backup Exec manages. To delete the expired archive item, the .cab file it resides in must be deleted from tape.

Because the .cab files may contain archived items with different retention periods, an expired item may be marked as deleted in the Backup Exec catalogs. However, it may not be immediately deleted from tape. All archived items in a .cab file must have expired retention periods before Enterprise Vault issues a command to delete the .cab file from tape.

Enterprise Vault can also delete entire archived vault store partitions from tape. After you delete an active Enterprise Vault vault store partition by using the Enterprise Vault Administration Console, Enterprise Vault deletes the associated archived partition from tape.

Backup Exec automatically recycles the tapes when all of the items on the tape are marked as deleted in the catalogs. Backup Exec checks for expired Enterprise Vault Migrator media once every 24 hours. If Backup Exec detects such media, it logically moves the media to the Scratch media node and then generates an information alert informing you of the move.

See About media in Backup Exec.