Consolidate storage cleanup patterns into 'Delete or auto-expire unused storage'

[russelltrow]

Title

Delete or auto-expire unused storage

Version

1.0

Submitted By

greenhsu123 (original author of both source patterns)

Published Date

2022-11-10 (carried over from the originals; to be confirmed by the patterns working group)

Intent

Reduce the storage hardware needed by deleting unused storage, manually or via retention policies, without losing data that is still needed.

Tags

storage, data-lifecycle, size:small

Problem

delete-unused-storage-resources (manual) and set-retention-policy-on-storage-resources (automated) share an author and date and have word-for-word identical Assumptions. Both fail principles 5, 8, 10 and 11 in the August 2026 Operations analysis. Only the manual one mentioned data-loss risk, even though automated deletion is arguably riskier.

Solution

One pattern with two techniques (manual deletion; retention-policy expiry) and a shared set of safeguards: named owners and retention periods, review before manual deletion, soft-delete or grace periods, and testing new policies on non-critical data first.

SCI Impact

SCI = (E * I) + M per R

M decreases (fewer storage devices needed); E is lower only marginally.

Assumptions

Unused storage can be identified; each data class has an owner who can state retention needs; legal/regulatory retention is documented first; the platform supports deletion rules or soft-delete if automating.

Pros & Cons

• PRO: Removes duplicate content; data-loss risk now covered for both techniques; testable Assumptions; adds Cost Impact.
• CON: Two URLs retire (redirected). Cost Impact is qualitative, with no quantified figures.

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What changed

• Added docs/operations/resource-lifecycle/delete-or-auto-expire-unused-storage.md (title is the wiki's example wording)
• Moved the two originals to archive/operations/resource-lifecycle/ (same approach as Archive low quality patterns #426)
• docusaurus.config.js: old URLs redirect to the new page
• src/data/personas.ts: old rows replaced with one in the DevOps, Data Engineer and Software Engineer lists (edited by hand to avoid unrelated regeneration drift)

For reviewers

• Not folded in: remove-unused-assets (the wiki says to consolidate it into this cluster, but it is a looser overlap that needs a judgement call) and optimise-storage-resource-utilisation (the wiki places it with VM rightsizing). Both are cross-referenced instead.
• Please check the data-loss and early-deletion-fee points against SME knowledge; I added the cold-storage alternative and the early-deletion fee consideration myself, as they are not in the originals.
• Touches the same files as Consolidate VM rightsizing patterns into 'Rightsize compute to match utilization' #436 and Consolidate CPU utilization patterns into 'Match CPU capacity to average and peak utilization' #437; expect trivial merge conflicts in docusaurus.config.js / src/data/personas.ts for whichever merges later.
• Local site build not verified (missing @docusaurus/plugin-client-redirects locally); please rely on CI / preview.
• Needs at least one SME review before merge (per Consolidate Operations category duplicate patterns #434).

Part of #434.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[russelltrow]

@franziska-warncke I've done another of the really simple Operations patterns consolidation tasks, ready for your review