Retention Policies

Cloud-native snapshots and image-level backups are not kept forever — they are removed according to retention policy settings specified in the backup schedule settings while creating a backup policy.

Depending on the data protection scenario, retention policy can be specified:

  • In restore points — for cloud-native snapshots.

The snapshot chain can contain only the allowed number of restore points. If the number of allowed restore points is exceeded, Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure removes the earliest restore point from the snapshot chain. For more information, see Retention Policy for Snapshots.

  • In days/months/years — for image-level backups and archives.

Restore points in the backup chain can be stored only for the allowed period of time. If a restore point is older than the specified limit, Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure removes it from the backup chain. For more information, see sections Retention Policy for Backups and Retention Policy for Archived Backups.

You can also specify retention settings for snapshots that become obsolete. For more information, see Configuring Global Retention Settings.

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