Keep a deleted VM in archive repository

[Beheer]

Hi all,

We moved to Azure and therefor to Veeam for Azure some time ago.
Now I have the situation where we want to keep a few VM's that are obsolete, just in case.
But not pay EUR 200 because they are deallocated but consume storage.
In the old days that was no issue, we always had our tape year backups, and the deleted VM's were save on tape, just in case.

What if I create a backup policy, add the obsolete VM's, with a daily or weekly schedule because I have to, and then a yearly schedule, keep for 2 years.
Let the job run until the yearly backup to archive repository is done.
Then delete the VM's.
And also delete the backup policy?

Do I see the deleted VM's in my "Protedced data" the next two years, despite that the backup policy and the VM's themselve are deleted?
Or do I need to keep the (disabled) backup policy, but can I delete the VM's?

Thanks and regards,
Han

[lyudmila.ezerskaya]

Hi Han,

If you create a backup of a VM, it will be stored in the specified repository for the retention period defined in the corresponding schedule settings of the backup policy.
Even if you delete the VM and the backup policy, you will still be able to see the restore points on the Protected Data page and perform restores.

[Beheer]

Thanks Lyudmila,

That is good news. Additional I had a question about deleting the backup before the inigtial retention set in the backup policy.
But I read in te Immutability section of the repository properties that the backup will be immutable until the retention period in the policy settings expires.
So think carefully about whta period to choose

[lyudmila.ezerskaya]

Hi!

That is correct—if you use an immutable repository to store backups, the files cannot be removed or modified until the immutability period expires.
However, from a repository that has immutability disabled, you can delete the backed-up data as outlined here.