Diplomat MFT data retention details

Some Diplomat MFT editions offer options to purge files based on age, such as configuration backups, logs, and files in SFTP Server user folders. Each of the various settings have their own independent aging criteria you specify per your policies and desires. They are all executed using the same general logic as part of Diplomat’s “Reaper” thread.

As of version 9, this Reaper thread runs approximately 10 minutes after service start and then subsequently every 24 hours. For each area with a retention policy enabled, it will evaluate any relevant files found to determine whether they exceed the configured age. For each “day” specified, if the actual age of the file is greater than the hours required to equal that number of days, then it is deleted. If it is not, then it will be left in place, and it will be evaluated again upon the next run, either 24 hours later or 10 minutes after service restart, whichever comes first.

For example, let’s assume a retention period of 7 days, which is actually 168 hours. When the Reaper thread runs, and it sees a file that is 183 hours old, that is greater than 168 hours and will therefore be deleted. If it sees another file that is 166.4 hours old, that file is not yet beyond the threshold for deletion, and thus that file will remain in place. A file may be just barely over 7 days old at the time of evaluation, or it could be getting close to 8 days old, and both are over the threshold and thus deleted by the Reaper thread. Either way, anything older than those 7 days will be removed automatically, ensuring a consistently minimal variance in file retention.