Issue
How long is record data kept within a ServiceNow Instance?
Would there be any difference between the tables such as Incident, Changes, Problems, etc.
Release
All Versions
Cause
Not applicable
Resolution
Retention and Table Rotation
Data retention and cleanup within a ServiceNow instance is managed by your instance administrators.
Records remains within the instance until removed by users or admins, either individually or in bulk via an integration / job etc.
Some tables are defined to remove data by default, on a weekly or monthly basis via 'table rotation'.
Tables using table rotation are meant to only hold a subset of transient data over time, before 'rotating' away on a pre-defined basis. Records rotated away are deleted from the instance.
System transactional (syslog) data is considered transient and removed over time to keep a rolling 8 weeks.
System Events (sys event) deletes data on a daily basis, maintaining a rolling one week of data.
Table rotation will remove data based on a defined rotation schedule.
There is another feature called 'table extension', however that retains data and auto extends data into new (smaller) table shards in the interests of performance.
You can view your table rotations (and extensions) via, Navpage > System Definition > Table Rotations
* Direct at https://__INSTANCE__.service-now.com/sys_table_rotation_list.do
* For more information see https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/utah-platform-administration/page/administer/platform-performance/concept/c_TableRotation.html
* Modifications to table extension and rotation can be potentially impacting.
* It is recommended to discuss any modifications with ServiceNow prior to any change.
Table Cleaner Removal
Data can be removed from your instance by users removing records, either individually or in bulk via filtered list etc.
ServiceNow provides a 'Table Cleaner' job that runs out of the box, removes records from a number of tables by matching filter criteria to a set of pre-defined rules.
Instance Admins can also create their own Table Cleaner rules to remove records from any table after a particular period of time - 30, 60, 90+ days and matching a set of user defined criteria.
You can view and configure Table Cleaner rules via Navpage > System Maintenance > Table Cleanup
* Direct at https://__INSTANCE__.service-now.com/sys_auto_flush_list.do
* For more information see https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/utah-platform-administration/page/administer/managing-data/concept/table-cleaner.html
Instance Size
Around the discussion of data retention and cleanup, is the amount of data that your instance retains.
To check on how much data your instance retains, visit Navpage > Instance Usage > Application Usage Overview.
* Within this page is 'Primary DB Size (MB) / Primary DB size of this Instance (in MB).
(Divide this number by 1000 to obtain the value in GB, or divide by 1,000,000 to obtain the amount of data consumed in TB.)
* Direct at https://__INSTANCE__.service-now.com/home.do?sysparm_view=usage_overview
There is also a service catalogue item in HI 'Database Footprint' which can be used to return the total database size & top 10 tables.
Failing the above, you can also reach out to ServiceNow Customer Support at any time to provide information on data usage within the instance (total, per table, etc).
Service Catalog for Instance Storage Usage
ServiceNow has created an automated workflow to allow customers to request the list of production and sub-production instances in a customer’s account along with storage consumption for each of the instance.
You can view this report by following these steps:
1. Navigate to the Now Support
2. Select Automation Store
3. Click on Service Catalog on the left navigation
4. Enter “Cloud” in the Search bar, and see option 'Cloud usage request'
5. Click on “Request”
For more information also see KB1532026
