Retention Policies in Entra ID Backup

By default, Nexetic Backup for Entra ID retains all backed-up data indefinitely. Once data is backed up, it remains in storage without expiration. The only exception is Sign-in and Audit Logs, which have a default retention period of one year.

We’ve now introduced support for retention policies specifically for Deleted Users. This allows you to define how long the backup should retain data associated with user accounts that have been deleted.

 1. Create a retention policy

To create a retention policy, click Retention policies in the drop-down menu under your signed-in username.

• Click Create in the top-left corner.
• Name: Enter a name for the policy.
• Service: Click the arrow to expand the Service selection menu and select Deleted users.
• Delete older than: Define length for the retention: x Days/Weeks/Months/Years from the date when the users were deleted from Entra ID. Minimum retention value for deleted users is 7 days.
• Optional: Use the Calculate effect option to estimate the amount of data that will be deleted based on the current retention policy settings. Please note that the estimated data size is typically small - unless your tenant also uses Microsoft 365 backup and the retention policy includes deletion of deleted users’ emails and files. In that case, the calculated data volume may be significantly larger.
• Complete the policy setup by clicking Save.
   

EXAMPLE: Remove Deleted Users

By enforcing the policy shown below, user accounts deleted from the organization's Entra ID more than 180 days ago will be removed from the backup. 

2. Modify or delete retention policies

You can modify existing retention policies by clicking the Edit button (pen icon) for the policy. All the policy attributes are editable.

You can delete a policy by clicking the Delete button (trash bin icon). After deleting a policy, the retention rule ceases to exist.