Change data retention period#

To avoid running out of disk space, by default Apache Kafka® drops the oldest messages from the beginning of each log after their retention period expires. Aiven for Apache Kafka® allows you to configure the retention period for each topic.

The retention period can be set at a service and at a topic level. The setting at service level will be taken into use when no retention period is defined for a specific topic (the default is 168 hours). The change of service retention period overwrites the retention period of previously created topics.

For a single topic#

  1. Log in to the Aiven web console and select your service.

  2. Click the Topics tab and then click the topic that you want to modify.

  3. In the Advanced configuration view find Retention ms.

  4. Change the value of Retention ms value to the desired retention length in milliseconds.

Tip

You can also change Retention bytes setting if you want to limit amount of data retained based on the storage usage.

At a service level#

  1. Log in to the Aiven web console and select your service.

  2. In the Overview page scroll down to Advanced configuration and click on Add configuration option.

  3. Select either kafka.log_retention_hours or kafka.log_retention_ms and assigning desirable length of time. Alternatively specify the value for kafka.log_retention_bytes if you prefer to limit amount of data retained based on the storage usage.

  4. Click on Save advanced configuration.

Unlimited retention#

We do not limit the maximum retention period in any way, and in order to disable time-based content expiration altogether set the retention value to -1.

Warning

Using high retention periods without monitoring the available storage space can cause your service to run out of disk space. These situations are not covered by our SLA.