Spool retention & archiving policy

[Abhishek Awasthi]

Has anyone here faced something similar or have a suggestion? what retention policy balances audit needs with storage cost? Appreciate any guidance or examples.

[Anuj Dhawan]

I would keep JES spool retention short and handle long-term retention separately. If particular SYSOUT is needed for audit or later investigation, copy it to a managed data set or output archive, verify that it can be retrieved, and then purge the spool copy.

The retention period can then vary by output type: routine job logs may only need a few days, while specific reports may need months or years under the organisation’s records policy. I’d also make sure any audit or legal hold prevents deletion of the saved copy.

Is the storage growth coming mainly from routine job logs, or from reports that the business actually needs to retain?