Short-Term Retention Policy

The short-term retention policy allows you to store backup files for a limited period of time — for a number of days. The short-term retention policy is available for all Veeam Plug-Ins operating in the managed mode.

How Short-Term Retention Works

In the management scenario, Veeam Backup & Replication applies the short-term retention policy at the application policy level as follows:

By default, Veeam Backup & Replication keeps backup files for 7 days. You can configure another retention period in days during the application backup policy configuration.
After each backup session, Veeam Backup & Replication checks the age of restore points.
Veeam Backup & Replication removes the outdated restore points.

As Microsoft SQL Server creates backups in a backup chain, Veeam Backup & Replication removes outdated restore points created with Veeam Plug-In for Microsoft SQL Server only from the inactive part of the backup chain. Only after the last restore point in a backup chain becomes outdated, Veeam Backup & Replication removes the inactive backup chain.

The short-term retention policy does not remove backups created for the purpose of the long-term retention policy. For details, see Long-Term Retention Policy (GFS).