Retention categories determine how long the archived data is stored in Enterprise Vault, before it is allowed to be deleted from the storage device. You can categorize the stored data into various groups by assigning them a retention category. This categorization makes it easier to retrieve archived items because it is possible to search by category.

You can assign a retention category to the archived data based on parameters such as business value and sensitivity etc. For example, typically user generated personal data has less business value than the data that is owned by the Sales department. You might want to store personal data for six months and the Sales data for five years. In such a scenario you can define two retention categories for each of these two types of data. For each retention category, you can define a retention policy, to indicate the minimum storage period for the data belonging to that retention category.

From the Data Insight Management Console, you can choose only those retention categories which are defined in the Enterprise Vault. To define a new retention category, you must have access to Enterprise Vault Administration Console. Data Insight automatically fetches the retention categories from the Enterprise Vault server at a scheduled interval and displays them as available options in the Management console. The default interval for fetching retention categories is one hour.

To know more about retention categories and how to define them, see the Veritas Enterprise Vault Administrator's Guide.