Data Retention

Understand how long Pingward stores your test results and what happens when data reaches its retention limit.

Overview

Pingward automatically stores test results including:

• Response status codes
• Response times
• Response headers
• Response bodies (sanitized based on your configuration)
• Error details and stack traces
• Test execution metadata

The retention period determines how long this historical data is kept before automatic cleanup.

Retention Periods by Plan

Your subscription plan determines how long test result data is retained:

Plan	Retention Period	Description
Free	7 days	One week of test history
Starter	30 days	One month of test history
Pro	90 days	Three months of test history
Enterprise	365 days	One year of test history

What This Means

Example on Pro plan:

• Test runs today (January 15)
• Result is stored and visible
• 90 days later (April 15), result is automatically deleted
• Test continues running, only old results are removed

Automatic Cleanup

How Cleanup Works

Pingward runs an automated cleanup job daily at 2:00 AM UTC that:

1. Checks each workspace's subscription plan
2. Identifies test results older than the retention period
3. Deletes old results in batches (1,000 records at a time)
4. Processes all workspaces sequentially

What Gets Deleted

When test results exceed the retention period:

• ✅ Response body (full payload)
• ✅ Response headers
• ✅ Error details and messages
• ✅ Test execution metadata
• ❌ Test configuration (kept forever)
• ❌ Issues (kept forever, separate retention)
• ❌ Uptime statistics (aggregated, kept forever)

What Stays

These items are not affected by data retention cleanup:

• Test configurations (URL, headers, assertions)
• Issue history and status
• Status page components
• Integration configurations
• Routing rules
• Uptime percentage calculations (aggregated daily)
• Response time averages (aggregated daily)

Upgrade for Longer Retention

Need to keep historical data longer? Upgrade your plan:

1. Go to Settings → Billing
2. Click Upgrade Plan
3. Choose a higher tier

Upgrade Path	Additional Retention
Free → Starter	+23 days (7 → 30 days)
Starter → Pro	+60 days (30 → 90 days)
Pro → Enterprise	+275 days (90 → 365 days)

Important: Upgrading does not restore already-deleted data. Results deleted during the Free tier cannot be recovered when upgrading to Pro.

Use Cases

Compliance Requirements

Scenario: Your compliance team requires 6 months of API monitoring history for audits.

Solution: Subscribe to Pro plan (90 days) or Enterprise plan (365 days) depending on exact requirements.

Cost Optimization

Scenario: You're monitoring 50+ endpoints and want to minimize costs. Most issues are caught within days, so you don't need long-term history.

Solution: Free plan (7 days) or Starter plan (30 days) provides sufficient history for immediate issue detection while keeping costs low.

Debugging Long-Term Issues

Scenario: You need to analyze response time trends over several months to identify slow degradation.

Solution: Pro plan (90 days) or Enterprise plan (365 days) enables long-term trend analysis and performance tracking.

Development vs Production

Scenario: Development tests don't need long retention, but production tests need comprehensive history.

Solution: Use separate workspaces with different plans:

• Dev workspace: Free or Starter plan
• Production workspace: Pro or Enterprise plan

Data Export (Before Deletion)

Currently, Pingward does not offer automated data export before retention cleanup.

Workaround for critical data:

Use the API to periodically export test results you want to keep indefinitely:

# Export all results for a specific test
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  https://api.pingward.com/api/tests/{test-id}/results \
  > test-results-backup.json

Run this export on a schedule (monthly, quarterly) to archive results before they're deleted.

Feature Roadmap

Automated data export and long-term archival features are planned for future releases.

Understanding the Cleanup Process

Batch Processing

The cleanup job processes deletions in batches of 1,000 records with a 100ms delay between batches. This ensures:

• Database performance is not impacted
• Other queries continue operating normally
• Cleanup completes within reasonable time

Per-Tenant Processing

Cleanup runs workspace-by-workspace (up to 10 workspaces in parallel), ensuring:

• One workspace's large dataset doesn't block others
• Each workspace's retention period is applied correctly
• Fair resource allocation across all workspaces

Execution Window

The daily cleanup runs at 2:00 AM UTC and typically completes within 30-60 minutes for most deployments.

Impact during cleanup:

• No user-facing performance impact
• Tests continue running normally
• API requests are not affected

Monitoring Retention Status

Test Result Count

View how many results are currently stored:

1. Go to Tests → Select a test
2. Click History tab
3. The count shows total stored results

Retention Date

To see when results will be deleted:

Result Date: January 15, 2024
Your Plan: Pro (90 days retention)
Deletion Date: April 15, 2024

Calculate deletion date: Result Date + Retention Period

Storage Usage (Enterprise)

Enterprise plans include storage usage dashboards showing:

• Total test results stored
• Storage size (MB/GB)
• Results approaching retention limit
• Estimated cleanup dates

Contact support to enable this feature.

FAQ

Q: What happens if I downgrade my plan?

If you downgrade from Pro (90 days) to Starter (30 days), the next cleanup job will delete results older than 30 days. Recent results (last 30 days) are preserved.

Q: Can I delete data earlier than the retention period?

Currently, there is no manual "delete all results" option. Test results are automatically cleaned up based on your plan's retention period. You can delete individual tests (which deletes all their results).

Q: Does pausing a test affect data retention?

No. Paused tests still have their historical results cleaned up based on the retention period.

Q: What if I delete a test?

Deleting a test immediately deletes:

• The test configuration
• All historical test results (regardless of retention period)
• Associated issues (if configured to cascade)

This action is permanent and cannot be undone.

Q: Are aggregate statistics (uptime %) deleted?

No. Daily uptime percentage and response time averages are aggregated and stored separately. These aggregated metrics are kept indefinitely for status pages and dashboard charts.

Q: How is retention calculated for test results?

Retention is calculated from the ExecutedAt timestamp of each test result. A result is deleted when: Current Date - ExecutedAt > Retention Period

Q: Can Enterprise customers negotiate longer retention?

Yes. Enterprise customers can request custom retention periods (e.g., 2 years, 5 years) as part of their contract. Contact sales for custom retention requirements.

Q: Is deleted data recoverable?

No. Once test results are deleted by the retention cleanup job, they are permanently removed from the database. Always ensure your retention period meets your needs before data is deleted.

Best Practices

Choose the Right Plan

Match your plan to your actual needs:

Need	Recommended Plan
Issue detection only (debug within days)	Free or Starter
Quarterly performance reviews	Pro
Annual audits and compliance	Enterprise
Long-term trend analysis	Enterprise

Archive Critical Tests

For tests with regulatory requirements:

1. Tag tests as "compliance" or "audit-required"
2. Export results monthly using the API
3. Store exports in long-term storage (S3, etc.)

Monitor Storage Growth

For large deployments:

• Review test frequency (do you need 1-minute intervals?)
• Enable response sanitization to reduce payload size
• Delete unused tests to avoid storing unnecessary results

Review Retention Needs Annually

Business needs change. Review your retention requirements annually:

• Are you keeping data longer than needed? (Save money by downgrading)
• Do new compliance requirements need longer retention? (Upgrade before data is lost)

Related Topics

• Response Sanitization - Reduce stored payload size
• Billing & Plans - Compare plan features and pricing
• Test Management - Configure and manage tests
• API Reference - Export test results programmatically