A client requested an extended retention for some files already backed up
under our STANDARD Management Class.
I created a new Management Class within the same Policy Set with this
extended retention, and asked this client to specify this new Management
Class in their next backup, with the idea that their files will then be
rebound to this new Management Class. The default Management Class remained
as STANDARD.
A few weeks went by. The client decided that they didn't need to extend
their files' retention after all, and so never used the new Management Class
I set up for them. I then deleted this Management Class.
We then began to receive error messages from various clients' backups that
the Management Class that I had defined/deleted had no Copy Groups defined,
and so the backup grace period would be assigned to these files.
I found out subsequently that, even though Management Class STANDARD was the
assigned default, ADSM will actually pick the Management Class with the
longest retention as the default (which somewhat negates the idea of
assigning a Management Class as a default, seems to me). Apparently, all the
backups assigned to this policy domain rebound themselves to this new
Management Class, simply because it had a longer retention than the default.
My questions on this are:
1.      When I deleted this temporary Management Class, why didn't the
clients' files rebind themselves back to the assigned default Management
Class, as the Admin Guide says they would, instead of taking the grace
period retention?
2.      What is the best way to resolve this situation? I redefined the
missing Management Class, but with the same retention as the STANDARD
Management Class. The error messages went away, but did this fix the
problem? Did the files that were given the grace period retention get
rebound back to the default management class, or would they still be subject
to the grace period retention?
3.      How about ARCHIVE Management Classes: If you have multiple ARCHIVE
Management Classes within the same Policy Set, does ADSM ignore the assigned
default Management Class in favor of the one that has the longest retention,
as it does with BACKUP? For example, if we have an assigned default ARCHIVE
class with a 365 day retention, and another class with a permanent
retention, does that mean that the permanent class is the actual default
class by virtue of its longer retention?