7.3.3. Retention Settings¶
Eventide NexLog DX-Series Recorders store call data on their storage devices and provide a built in database for immediate retrieval and playback of recorded audio. Once the hard drives fill up with data, the oldest data will begin to be deleted from the system to make room for new data as new recordings are made. The Retention settings allow you to customize when this data is deleted.
Note: any Call Record which has been marked as “Protected” in the Front Panel or MediaWorks DX will not be deleted to make room for new recordings regardless of retention settings. If both Limit retention time and Limit recording count fields are disabled, then call records will only be deleted if the hard drives are too full to store new recordings. Enabling and setting “Limit retention time (days)” will cause all call records older than the configured number of days to be deleted. For example, if set to 60 days, the recorder hard drives will contain a rolling history of the past 60 days of recordings, assuming adequate disk space to contain 60 days’ worth of calls.
In addition, Limit Recording Count allows a maximum number of Recordings to be specified. If this number is surpassed, the oldest recordings on the disk will be deleted to restore this constraint.
The Limit retention warning time (hours) setting will trigger an active alarm if the archive pointer for any archive drive is fewer than X hours ahead of the retention setting. For example:
On a system with 60 days of recordings, with the Warning Time set to 48 hours, and only uses a NAS to archive, and that archive is usually up-to-date, if someone stops the archive to browse and then forgets to start archiving again later, an alert will trigger in 58 days warning that the recordings are in danger of being deleted before they are archived. If someone starts the archive again at this point, the alarm will resolve after the archive pointer gets ahead of that 2 day window. If instead, no one reacts, recordings will start to be deleted before they have been archived and a second alarm will happen saying that the archive pointer is now behind the retention time.
We recommend setting the Warning Time to something high enough that your organization can respond to an issue that has arisen, such as 168 hours, which is one week.
Note that these settings have no effect on Archives. Eventide recommends Archive settings be properly configured and archive media to be properly maintained to put in effect a policy of making sure all recordings are archived to one or more archive media before being deleted due to retention policy.
By default, the option Delete record history with media is enabled. This option deletes the call record and associated metadata from the recorder database when deleting the record media (audio or screen.) For most users, this is the correct choice, but if you want to retain all information about call records that have come into your recorder even if they can no longer be played or exported, disable this option.
7.3.3.1. Reserves¶
Changed in version 2021.1: Reserve for attachments now includes User Content Uploads
There are three more fields to configure: Reserve for Attachments, Reserve for Reports, and Reserve for Cache, all in megabytes. These fields allow you to set a limit on disk space consumed by attachments (including User Content Uploads), reports and cache. The defaults are fine for most users. Unlike the limit fields, these fields do not cause deletion when exceeded; instead, no more attachments can be added to incidents, nor can more reports be generated. The recorder will have an active alarm if the reserve limit is met, allowing the system administrator to either increase the space available or contact users to have them delete unnecessary reports or attachments.
7.3.3.2. Retention Filters¶
The Retention Filters tab lists all Resource Groups with Retention Rules enabled. These groups are configured at the Resource Groups page, and the edit Retention Groups button will take you to the Resource Groups page, with the group filter set to show just Retention Groups.
7.3.3.3. Advanced Retention Settings¶
Clicking the Advanced tab will expose some advanced configuration settings. You generally would not need to change any of these settings unless recommended by Eventide or your Eventide Communications Dealer.
Delete Parent Media Record: Certain Custom Integrations purchased from Eventide are designed to break existing media records into multiple records. When this is done, this setting determines whether the original media record is also retained or deleted
Use Prefix on Ignore: Used with Some Custom Integrations for Motorola SmartZone recordings where the same recording will be recorded from two different towers. This setting will cause the secondary ‘backup’ recording to have its channel name prefixed with DUP_ for ‘Duplicate’
Use Unknown as Channel name: Normally the channel name of a call will be assigned with the configured name of the channel it is recorded on. This value can then be overridden by a Metadata Feed or Custom Integration. If no value comes in from these secondary sources, the name remains the name of the channel. If this option is checked, and no value comes in via a Metadata feed or custom integration, then the channel name for the recording will be set to ‘Unknown’ instead of the name of the channel it was recorded on.