Enforcing a retention rule
The frequency at which a retention rule is applied should be always be considered. If you define a granular retention rule, such as time-based retention with rules for the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly retention of online data from a long period of time, this type of retention works best when applied only once.
If you apply the retention again the next day, even if changes have been made in the past 24 hours and backed up, the other retention rules (weekly, monthly, yearly) will likely not capture data meeting the policy. By applying the rule only once, you can make it as granular as you want based on your knowledge of the online data.
Regular retention, such as weekly scheduled enforcement, is more effective with retention rules that do not contain rule intervals longer than the frequency of enforcement. This means if you enforce retention weekly, it is best not to have rules for intervals longer than a week. You must consider the frequency of data changes.
To enforce a retention rule:
1. Click the Backup Sets tab.
2. Select the backup on which you want to enforce retention.
3. On the Retention menu, click Enforce Retention.
4. When prompted to confirm that you want to enforce the retention rule, click Yes.