About Index Blocks

Marking different data collectors in Index Blocks of same retention period and archive properties enables faster management of data purging as data will not have to be deleted at individual data collector levels, but as blocks of data. You can associate a data collector to one of the various Index Blocks, each having a configurable retention period by one of the following ways:

• You can select an Index Block while creating a data collector from  the Advanced Options section of the Administration> Data Collectors­­­ page in the product. For more information, see Creating Data Collectors.
• You can select an Index Block through Collection Profiles.

You can select an Index Block from one of the default Index Blocks defined in the product or create custom Index blocks. If you select an ITDA Metrics data pattern when you create a data collector, the Metrics Index Block is automatically associated with the data collector and you cannot choose from an out-of-the-box Index Block. 

When you select an Index Block, the properties of that Index Block are displayed below it. The properties that are displayed are:

• Archive: This indicates whether the data that you index using the selected Index Block will be archived.
• Retention Days: This indicates the retention days associated with the Index Block.

Select an Index Block as per your requirements of retention days for the data that is collected and whether you want to archive the collected data. The retention days and archive enable settings are configured by the Administrator. The following retention days are associated with the out-of-the-box Index Blocks by default. These numbers can vary for an upgraded setup.

For more information on modifying Index Block settings, see Changing system settings.