Purging windchill viewable database

[rsnider-2]

How to purge out of date viewables from windchill viewable database.  Windchill 10.2  Visualization Services Guide is no help.

[ChrisPLM]

Hello Rex

what we did was not to purge the out of date but republish them.

In the Publish Manager you have various option one is RepublishOutOfDate

Maybe this helps.

Best regards

[rsnider-2]

Chris,

Thank you for responding.  I guess I was not exactly clear.  I do know about republishing out of date objects.

What I really mean is how does one purge the ever increasing data base of objects that were published and are no longer needed.  When an object is published the system does not remove the old published images, it just creates another and stores it on the server with all the others.  This eats up storage space unnecessarily.  Of course when the viewable is needed the system knows to bull the latest for the end user so why keep the old ones?

Rex

[TomU]

You need to purge unreferenced files from Windchill.  See CS56539.

To remove Unreferenced Files: 

1. Login to Windchill as a Site Administrator
2. Navigate to Site -> Utilities -> File Server Administration -> Vault Configuration
3. In the Vault Configuration UI select the Vault  you want to process in the left hand navigator
4. From Object menu select Remove Unreferenced Files
5. In the Notice pop up Windows, select Move files instead of deleting if you want to move the files instead of deleting them

[TomU]

By the way, you can automate this process so it runs automatically on a schedule.  See CS93526.

Settting Automated Cleanup Options: 

• Launch Site > Utilities 
• Launch Vault Configuration from File Server Administrator
• Select Site from details menu
• Select Object > Define Content Cleanup Rules from menu
• Automated cleanup of replica vaults screen will pop up 
  • Site: lists what selected
  • Vault Sizes: replica vaults listed
  • Cleanup Rules: 
    • by size
    • specified time unreferenced not accessed
  • Cleanup Schedule: 
    • by time
    • by frequency in days

[ChrisPLM]

Tom was quicker than me and as usual his answers are very well structured and details.

Hope that answer your question.

Note that this will not only remove the unreferenced vizualiation file but all the unreferenced files.

When I learnt about this functionality about 5 years ago. our vault size reduced by about 50% !!!.