How to delete data from Kusto table

Question

I'm trying to use the .delete command instead of purge to remove data from a table. As, .delete does not change the ingestion timestamp, or the tags created and helps to restate the data when needed.

The .delete command performs a soft delete, making the data logically inaccessible and irreversible, but it does not immediately delete the storage artifacts. Also, the rows marked as deleted are eventually purged.

I have questions about the retention policy in this context. Is the retention policy at the database level the same as the policy for. delete, or are they different? For example, if the retention policy for soft deletes in the database is set to unlimited, does this mean the rows deleted with. delete also have an unlimited retention period, or are they completely purged after 14 days?

If. delete is not the right function for permanently deleting records, what is the best way to ensure that any data is fully removed from the system?

Answer 1

Hello @Sujatha Erepalli (Brillio LLC) ,

welcome to this moderated Azure community forum.

It's not clear to me what 'PII' data is but in general the same deletion flow is applicable to all tables.

Please check the documentation regarding the soft delete policy object.

Soft deleted data is recoverable for a limited period:

If set to Enabled, the data will be recoverable for 14 days after it's been soft-deleted.

The SoftDeletePeriod defaults to '100 years' but it's related to the retention time of the table which is normally tied to the database retention time.

You can check the retention time yourself eg.:

.show table Table1 policy retention

The documentation also comes with several examples.

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