Hello Himakara -

I queried Documentum's product manager for Centera and received the following response:

RPS is the retention module of Records Manager. When an RPS policy is applied to a document that is stored on a Centera (Documentum Content Addressable Store), the retention can be propagated and enforced at the Centera level through the Documentum Content Services for EMC Centera (CSEC). CSEC is the Documentum native integration with Centera, and is a licensable component for the Content Server. RPS and CSEC enables both application level (RPS) and storage level (retention). The Content Addressable Store should be configured for retention awareness so that the RPS retention can be propagated to the Centera.

In the Documentum D6 release, CSEC introduced support for Centera Event Based Retention. Centera Retention Hold support was introduced in CSEC in release D6 SP1. Support for these features at the Centera level are leveraged through RPS. An RPS conditional retention corresponds to an Centera EBR, while an RPS Hold markup corresponds to a Centera retention hold.

RPS digital shredding is used when removing content that is stored on non-Centera storage. Centera actually performs it own digital shredding on Centera Governance and Compliance Edition Plus models. On these Centera models, a request to delete content will result in the content being deleted and shredded.


I hope this information is helpful.

Best Regards,
Mike Horgan
EMC Centera Engineering

Hi Mike,

Thank you very much! that was very helpfull. so bottom line is I need to have RPS, CSEC & Centera to implment a documentum/ centera based retention system correct?

Also are you aware of the additional benefits of using a RPS, CSEC & centera based rentention system compared to RPS, SAN based retention system.

Thanks in advance,
Himakara.

Hello -

Yes, your "bottom line" is correct.

Centera's advantage over a SAN-based RPS system is that the retention enforcement is pushed all the way down into the storage device. It is impossible to "go behind" RPS's back and delete the data from the underlying filesystem even with "root" privileges. Centera will prevent all deletion attempts until the retention criteria are satisfied.

Best Regards,
Mike Horgan
Centera CSE

Hello Mike

"... The Content Addressable Store should be configured for retention awareness ..."

Mike, is it possible to get documentation about how to "configure Centera for retention awareness" ?

We are experiencing troubles while propagating RPS phase event dates to centera EBR.

Hello -

Centera is sold in 3 editions, one of which (Basic Edition) does not support retention enforcement. Also, event-based retention functionality is part of the separately licensed Advanced Retention feature set. So the statement you referenced is asking you to make sure your Centera is running in Governance or Compliance Edition Plus mode with ARM enabled.

Beyond that, I would recommend you open a support case with EMC to resolve any problems you are experiencing.

Regards,
Mike Horgan
Centera Product Management