ECS 3.6.2 Data Access Guide

Compliance and retention policy

Describes enhanced rules for record retention on a Compliance-enabled ECS system. ECS sets object retention features to On at the object, bucket, and namespace levels. Compliance strengthens these features by limiting changes that can be made to retention settings on objects under retention. Rules include:

• Compliance is set at the namespace level. This means that all buckets in the namespace must have a retention period greater than zero. For CAS, buckets with zero retention can be created, as long as the Enforce Retention Information in Object setting is turned On.
• You can only turn Compliance on when you create a namespace. (You cannot add Compliance to an existing namespace.)
• You cannot turn Compliance off once it is turned on.
• All buckets in a namespace must have a retention period greater than zero.
  NOTE: If you have an application that assigns object-level retention periods, do not use ECS to assign a retention period greater than the application retention period. This action causes application errors.
• A bucket with data in it cannot be deleted regardless of its retention value.
• Applying the Infinite option to a bucket means that objects in the bucket in a Compliance-enabled namespace cannot be deleted permanently.
• The retention period for an object cannot be deleted or shortened. Therefore, the retention period for a bucket cannot be deleted or shortened.
• You can increase object and bucket retention periods.
• No user can delete an object under retention. This includes users with the CAS privileged-delete permission.