Retention policy and deletion of archived files

Question

hello, I 'am a novice DBA having a backup question.
Our retention policy is set to 14 days; weekly we have full database backup; daily we have an incremental backup.
See scripts below.
The drive "\\is003s012\rhea\rman" where the backup files reside has files older than 2 months.
I expected these files to be deleted already by rman.
I can't find the cause why these files are not removed.
The database backup jobs are running fine ; logs file do not contain any errors and once and a while you see that rman removes obsolete files.
list expired / report obsolete do not return any files.
thanks for the assistance
chris
================= full db
c$rman_script="backup incremental level 0 cumulative device type disk tag '%TAG' database;
backup device type disk tag '%TAG' archivelog all not backed up delete all input;
allocate channel for maintenance type disk;
delete noprompt obsolete device type disk;
release channel;
&br_save_agent_env();
&br_prebackup($l_db_connect_string, $l_is_cold_backup, $l_use_rcvcat, $l_db_10_or_higher, $l_backup_strategy, "TRUE");
my $result = &br_backup();
exit($result);
================ incr db
$rman_script="backup incremental level 1 cumulative device type disk tag '%TAG' database;
recover copy of database;
backup device type disk tag '%TAG' archivelog all not backed up delete all input;
allocate channel for maintenance type disk;
delete noprompt obsolete device type disk;
release channel;
&br_save_agent_env();
&br_prebackup($l_db_connect_string, $l_is_cold_backup, $l_use_rcvcat, $l_db_10_or_higher, $l_backup_strategy, "TRUE");
my $result = &br_backup();
exit($result);
================== rman setting
RMAN> show all;
RMAN configuration parameters for database with db_unique_name RHEA are:
CONFIGURE RETENTION POLICY TO RECOVERY WINDOW OF 14 DAYS;
CONFIGURE BACKUP OPTIMIZATION OFF; # default
CONFIGURE DEFAULT DEVICE TYPE TO DISK; # default
CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP ON;
CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP FORMAT FOR DEVICE TYPE DISK TO '\\is003s012\rhea\rman\%F';
CONFIGURE DEVICE TYPE DISK PARALLELISM 1 BACKUP TYPE TO BACKUPSET; # default
CONFIGURE DATAFILE BACKUP COPIES FOR DEVICE TYPE DISK TO 1; # default
CONFIGURE ARCHIVELOG BACKUP COPIES FOR DEVICE TYPE DISK TO 1; # default
CONFIGURE CHANNEL DEVICE TYPE DISK FORMAT '\\is003s012\rhea\rman\%U';
CONFIGURE MAXSETSIZE TO UNLIMITED; # default
CONFIGURE ENCRYPTION FOR DATABASE OFF; # default
CONFIGURE ENCRYPTION ALGORITHM 'AES128'; # default
CONFIGURE COMPRESSION ALGORITHM 'BASIC' AS OF RELEASE 'DEFAULT' OPTIMIZE FOR LOAD TRUE ; # default
CONFIGURE ARCHIVELOG DELETION POLICY TO BACKED UP 1 TIMES TO 'SBT_TAPE';
CONFIGURE SNAPSHOT CONTROLFILE NAME TO 'D:\ORACLE\PRODUCT\11.2.0\DBHOME_1\DATABASE\SNCFRHEA.ORA'; # default

Answer 1

Chris,
Thanks for the info; my current setting for this parameter:
SQL> show parameter CONTROL_FILE_RECORD_KEEP_TIME;
NAME                                 TYPE        VALUE
control_file_record_keep_time        integer     7
I found another thread that elaborated on this: Re: CONTROL_FILE_RECORD_KEEP_TIME vs Retention Policy in RMAN
a) RMAN Retention Policy set to recovery window of 30 days means backups and archivelogs that you need to do a Point in Time Recovery to before 30 days do not get obsolete.
b) CONTROLFILE_RECORD_KEEP_TIME=7 will keep (potentially, if space pressure in the controlfile) the records of these files for only 7 days
Effect: Your old backups and archivelogs (+7 days) are no longer known by the system and will not get deleted (automatically or by delete obsolete) and your recovery area/backup location/archive destination will get filled up with old files.
Therefore set b) > a)
Based on this I changed the parameter:
alter system set CONTROL_FILE_RECORD_KEEP_TIME=35 scope=both;
Even tho the 'stale' backupsets are still invisible (still getting 'no obsolete backups found' when doing REPORT OBSOLETE), I guess that's because it will take a while (23 days?) for the CONTROL_FILE_RECORD_KEEP to catch up to the RMAN Retention Policy of 30 days)....
Barry