This is an archive version of the document. To get the most up-to-date information, see the current version.

Retention Policy

In this article

Every successful backup job session creates a new restore point that lets you roll back VM data to an earlier point in time. When you define retention policy, you specify how many restore points you want to keep and thus how ‘far’ you want to be able to roll back. After the allowed number of restore points is exceeded, Veeam Backup & Replication automatically removes the earliest restore point from the backup chain.

Veeam Backup & Replication handles restore points in different ways for forward forever-incremental, incremental and reverse incremental backup chains:

Retention Policy for Forever Forward Incremental Backup
Retention for Forward Incremental Backup
Retention for Reverse Incremental Backup

Retention Policy Note:

When the allowed number of restore points in the backup chain is exceeded, Veeam Backup & Replication deletes the whole backup file, not separate VMs from it. For more information, see Removing Restore Points from the Backup Chain.