Few, More, Many – vDR Retention Policy Autopilot

I likely should have started with a post or two about vDR (VMware Data Recovery), what it is, and how to install it. Instead, I’ll point you to some of the docs on those: Info & Installing. The installing guide is especially recommended after I spent a few days unsuccessfully installing vDR (Hint: Use the most recent code)

That said, now that everything is installed and connected, creating the first back job is straight forward (more in another post if you’d like) except the retention policies. VMware’s vDR admin guide has this to say on it:

Retention Policy
    Data Recovery backups are preserved for a variable period of time. You can choose to keep more or fewer backups for a longer or shorter period of time. Keeping more backups consumes more disk space, but also provides more points in time to which you can restore virtual machines. As backups age, some are automatically deleted to make room for new backups. You can use a predefined retention policy or create a custom policy. The backup policy is once a day during the backup window.

What does that mean? Well, take a look at the first screenshot of what you’re presented with:

Few, More, Many and Custom. If only backups were that simple, often they’re not.

Here is a breakdown of the default policies:

Few: 7 most recent, 4 weeks, 3 months
More: 7 most recent, 8 weeks, 6 months, 4 quarters, 1 year
Many: 15 most recent, 8 weeks, 3 months, 8 quarters, 3 years

If you don’t already have a backup policy/job, perhaps one of these will fit, as all the options are quite sensible. Keeping in mind that the higher you go, the more space they’ll take. If one of these does not fit… there is always custom, which can be tuned to your hearts desire.

Let me know if you have vDR questions in the comments.