Data Retention Policy

Forward Networks implements a Data Retention Policy to reduce the risk of running out of storage and losing the ability to collect future Snapshots by periodically deleting older Snapshots.

The Data Retention Policies for SaaS and on-premises deployments are summarized in the tables below:

Snapshot Age	SaaS Retention Policy
0 to 7 days	All
7 to 30 days	One per day
Older than 30 days	One per week

tip

The Data Retention Policy cannot be disabled or modified in SaaS deployments.
If you would like additional clarifications on the policy, please contact support@forwardnetworks.com.

Snapshot Age	On-Prem Retention Policy
0 to 7 days	All
7 to 30 days	One per day
30 to 90 days	One per week
90 days to 1 year	One per month
Older than 1 year	One per quarter

Moreover, for both SaaS and on-premises deployments:

• the latest 10 Snapshots in each network are always retained
• starred Snapshots in each network are always retained
• for a One per X policy, the system retains the latest snapshot in that time period
• any forked Snapshot generated while in Sandbox is deleted if its parent Snapshot is deleted

Disable the Data Retention Policy

Disabling the Data Retention Policy in on-premises deployments is not recommended, but if you want to disable it anyway, navigate to Collection --> Collection Settings --> Retention policy, select the Keep all option and finally, click on Save changes

Modify the Data Retention Policy

To modify the Data Retention Policy, navigate to Collection --> Collection Settings --> Retention policy and select the Custom option.
Use the drop-down menus to change the settings according to your custom data retention policy, then select one of the following options:

• Run updated policy within 24 hours
• Run updated policy immediately

Finally click on Save changes.

If you wish to download any old Snapshots before these are automatically cleared, you can download them via the Forward User Interface or via the REST APIs.

Download a Snapshot via the Forward User Interface

To download a Snapshot to your local computer via the Forward UI, click on the Snapshot selector and then click on the download icon on the right side of the Snapshot you want to download, as shown in the picture below

Download a Snapshot via the Forward REST APIs

You can utilize the Snapshots API to programmatically download Snapshots.

1. List all the Snapshots in your network

Use the /api/networks/{networkId}/snapshots endpoint to get the list of Snapshots.
The networkId can be easily found by checking the url, e.g. it is 100 in this example https://fwd.app/?/search?networkId=100&snapshotId=111

An easy way to get the Snapshots list is by using the following curl command:

curl -k -u <username>:<password> \
-X GET "https://fwd.app/api/networks/<network-id>/snapshots" \
|   json_pp

tip

Note that the -k option is needed only if you need to disable SSL cert validation (not recommended)

2. Download Snapshots
   Identify the SnapshotId from the Snapshot list and use the /api/snapshots/{snapshotId} endpoint to download the Snapshot

curl -k -u <username>:<password>  \
-X GET "https://fwd.app/api/snapshots/<snapshot-id>" \
-H "accept: application/zip"  >  mySnapshot.zip

API Examples

1. List all the Snapshots in your network

$   curl -k -u username:password \
>        -X GET "https://fwd.app/api/networks/100/snapshots" \
>        |   json_pp
{
   "name" : "Fabrizio",
   "orgId" : "100",
   "snapshots" : [
      {
         "state" : "PROCESSED",
         "totalDevices" : 193,
         "processedAtMillis" : 1631113919510,
         "processingTrigger" : "IMPORT",
         "id" : "103",
         "creationDateMillis" : 1631113913074,
         "note" : "Multi-cloud",
         "isDraft" : false
      },
      {
         "totalDevices" : 140,
         "state" : "PROCESSED",
         "processingTrigger" : "IMPORT",
         "processedAtMillis" : 1631113863518,
         "note" : "After Change",
         "isDraft" : false,
         "id" : "102",
         "creationDateMillis" : 1631113857450
      },
      {
         "processedAtMillis" : 1631113766007,
         "processingTrigger" : "IMPORT",
         "favoritedAtMillis" : 1631113921527,
         "favoritedByUserId" : "103",
         "state" : "PROCESSED",
         "totalDevices" : 139,
         "isDraft" : false,
         "note" : "Before change",
         "id" : "101",
         "creationDateMillis" : 1631113754748
      },
      {
         "state" : "PROCESSED",
         "totalDevices" : 193,
         "processedAtMillis" : 1631057974381,
         "processingTrigger" : "IMPORT",
         "id" : "100",
         "creationDateMillis" : 1612484048642,
         "isDraft" : false,
         "note" : "Multi-cloud"
      }
   ],
   "creatorId" : "100",
   "id" : "100",
   "createdAt" : 1631057923160
}

2. Download Snapshots

$   curl -k -u username:password \
>        -X GET "https://fwd.app/api/snapshots/103" \
>        -H "accept: application/zip" > mySnapshot.zip
$

$ ls -l mySnapshot.zip
-rw-r--r--  1 user1  staff  2368583 Sep  8 08:21 mySnapshot.zip