Setting a Storage Analytics data retention policy

  • Article

By default, Storage Analytics will not delete any logging or metrics data. There are two ways to delete Storage Analytics data: by manually making deletion requests or by setting a data retention policy.

Important

To avoid unnecessary charges, set a retention policy for logging and metrics.

Setting a Data Retention Policy

You can configure two data retention policies: one for logging and one for metrics. When enabled for both, Storage Analytics will delete logs and table entries older than the specified number of days. The maximum retention period is 365 days (1 year).

Note

When you make any changes to your retention policy, it may take several minutes for your settings to be applied.

To set up a policy that deletes both logging and metrics data after 7 days, make a request to the Set Blob Service Properties, Set Table Service Properties, or Set Queue Service Properties operation with the <RetentionPolicy> nodes configured like shown:

…  
<RetentionPolicy>  
    <Enabled>true</Enabled>  
    <Days>7</Days>  
</RetentionPolicy>  
…

The following XML shows the <RetentionPolicy> nodes in the context of complete payload for a Set Blob Service Properties request:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>  
<StorageServiceProperties>  
    <Logging>  
        <Version>1.0</Version>  
        <Delete>true</Delete>  
        <Read>false</Read>  
        <Write>true </Write>  
        <RetentionPolicy>  
            <Enabled>true</Enabled>  
            <Days>7</Days>  
        </RetentionPolicy>  
    </Logging>  
    <HourMetrics>  
        <Version>1.0</Version>  
        <Enabled>true</Enabled>  
        <IncludeAPIs>false</IncludeAPIs>  
        <RetentionPolicy>  
            <Enabled>true</Enabled>  
            <Days>7</Days>  
        </RetentionPolicy>  
    </HourMetrics>  
    <MinuteMetrics>  
        <Version>1.0</Version>  
        <Enabled>true</Enabled>  
        <IncludeAPIs>false</IncludeAPIs>  
        <RetentionPolicy>  
            <Enabled>true</Enabled>  
            <Days>7</Days>  
        </RetentionPolicy>  
    </MinuteMetrics>  
    <DefaultServiceVersion>2013-08-15</DefaultServiceVersion>  
</StorageServiceProperties>

You can also configure a retention policy that uses different periods for logging and metrics. To disable a retention policy in the future, call the Set Blob Service Properties operation with the <Enabled> node inside set to false, as shown below:

…  
<RetentionPolicy>  
    <Enabled>false</Enabled>  
    <Days>7</Days>  
</RetentionPolicy>  
…

Note

If you disable Storage Analytics for a storage service but a data retention policy is enabled, your old data will continue to get deleted. To avoid accidental data loss, ensure that you configure your data retention policy when enabling and disabling Storage Analytics.

See Also

Set Blob Service Properties
Get Blob Service Properties
Set Table Service Properties
Get Table Service Properties
Set Queue Service Properties
Get Queue Service Properties