Unused Storage Deletion

When Compute Instances are terminated, it is fairly common to see that the associated storage resources are not deleted at the same time, whether through the forgetfulness of a human performing manual terminations or an incomplete automated deletion process. Some storage volume types incur cost whether or not they are utilized.

This section walks you through how to:

• Configure the Unused Storage Deletion Policy
• Define the Scope of the Unused Storage Deletion Resources to Include
• Define the Unused Storage Time Period Thresholds for Deletion
• Define the Unused Storage Deletion Actions to Take
• Configure the General Unused Storage Deletion Policy Options
• Customize the Unused Storage Deletion Policy
• Review Actions Taken by the Unused Storage Deletion Policy
• Notify Users on How to Use the Unused Storage Deletion Policy

Configure the Unused Storage Deletion Policy

To configure the Unused Storage Deletion Policy:

1. Go to the Catalog page (Automation > Catalog).
2. Select the appropriate policy and click Apply.
3. Select the options to configure the policy.

Define the Scope of the Unused Storage Deletion Resources to Include

To define the scope of the Unused Storage Deletion resources to include:

Determine which resources to evaluate for the Unused Storage Deletion Policy.

• To define scope using Select Accounts: Specify the list of accounts to evaluate. For example, you may wish to limit the deletion of storage to non-production accounts or to any subset of accounts.
• To define scope using Tag filtering: Limit the scope within the selected accounts by specifying tags to exclude. For example, if your production and non-production resources are mixed in your cloud accounts, you can leverage this tag-based filtering functionality to limit the deletion based on an environment tag.

Define the Unused Storage Time Period Thresholds for Deletion

Specify the number of days the volume should be unattached before deletion.

Define the Unused Storage Deletion Actions to Take

To define the Unused Storage Deletion actions to take:

Perform the following actions.

• Configure users to be notified: Specify the list of recipients who should receive notifications of storage deletion. Add as many recipients as you like to the Email addresses of the recipients you wish to notify field. They do not need to be registered as Cloud Cost Optimization users.
• Configure automated actions for the policy: Specify whether you want the recipients to receive an emailed report of deletion recommendations with no automated action, or send the report as well as taking automated action to delete the storage volumes that meet the criteria defined above.
• Configure whether to take a snapshot: Check the box if you want the policy to automatically take a final snapshot before deleting.

Configure the General Unused Storage Deletion Policy Options

To configure the general Unused Storage Deletion Policy options:

Set the following standard policy configuration options when the Unused Storage Deletion Policy is applied.

• Frequency for policy to run: Specify the frequency the policy will perform the checks, such as weekly, daily, hourly, or every 15 minutes.
• Fully automated vs approval required: Specify at the time it is applied whether the policy will take action after user approval versus automatically without user intervention. For details, see the Skip Action Approvals documentation.

Customize the Unused Storage Deletion Policy

To customize the Unused Storage Deletion Policy:

Policy designers can customize the Unused Storage Deletion Policy definition as they choose.

Review Actions Taken by the Unused Storage Deletion Policy

These actions may occur with approval or fully automated depending on whether the policy manager has selected the Skip approval option.

Any storage that meets the conditions specified will be:

• Snapshotted (if the option was selected)
• Deleted (if the Email and Delete option was selected)

If the volume is not able to be deleted for any reason, such as the volume being locked, the volume will be tagged to indicate the CloudException error that was received. If the issue causing the delete failure is removed, the next run of the policy will delete the volume.

Note:The unattached volumes report will reflect the updated set of unattached volumes on the subsequent run.