We are running EMC EBR 5.1.0-7.0.60-11_1.2.269.   So far, it has worked well in my tests.

During our tests, we created a "test" policy that had a retention of 6 months (and incrementals forever).   In our testing phase, I would manually edit the policy and change the VM selection in the "Backup" tab.

When running backups manually, will the 6 months retention still be valid?   I only ask since a couple of backups seem to disappear after a month.  

Also, is there any way to export the "Reports" tab information to a file? 

Just to clarify, the above is only a test (to understand how EBR works).    I do plan on defining proper monthly policies for our production backups.