Azure DevOps Services: Question about retention period on Azure region Microsoft side

Question

Azure DevOps Services: An internal question was raised about retention of data within Azure DevOps: how long does Microsoft keep data in the regions? I know there are some retention settings visible in Azure DevOps, but regarding boards, work items etc, is there a limit as well, or does this data only get deleted once we choose to delete the project/organization?

Additionally, is there any information about whether Microsoft applies any automatic retention or purge policies to this data whilst the organization is still active?

Answer 1

Hey Lara, please find the details on Azure DevOps data retention for boards, work items, repos, etc.:

1. No built-in “time-to-live” for boards or work items
   • Your work items, boards, repos, wikis and other core artifacts live in your organization/project for as long as you keep that org or project. Microsoft doesn’t auto-purge these while the org’s active—you’ll only lose them when you explicitly delete the project or organization.
2. Soft-delete window on orgs/projects
   • When you delete a project or org, Azure DevOps holds it in a “soft-deleted” state for 28 days (so you can recover it if needed). After 28 days (and in rare cases it can take up to 70 days for backend cleanup), it’s permanently removed and can’t be restored.
3. Disaster-recovery backups (not customer-accessible)
   • Under the covers, data is geo-replicated (six copies across paired regions) and point-in-time backups of Azure SQL Databases are retained for 28 days. These backups exist solely for service continuity and can’t be used to roll back your day-to-day changes or restore accidentally deleted work items.
4. Pipeline/build/test retention is separate
   • If you’re asking about CI/CD runs, artifacts and test results, those have configurable retention policies in Project Settings → Pipelines → Retention (or per-pipeline). You can set days to keep or mark specific runs/releases to “retain indefinitely.”
5. No automatic purge on active data
   • Aside from pipeline artifacts subject to retention policies you configure, Microsoft does not apply any other automatic purge or purge policies to your active boards, work items or repos.

Hope that clarifies and let me know if any further questions.

Reference docs

• Data protection overview (geo-replication & backups)
• Recover deleted projects & orgs (28-day soft delete)
• Pipelines retention policies (builds, releases, tests)

Note: This content was drafted with the help of an AI system.

Answer 2

For Azure DevOps Services, data in an active organization (including boards and work items) is not subject to a fixed time-based purge by Microsoft. Data such as pipeline runs, releases, and tests is controlled by configurable retention policies; boards/work items are generally retained until explicitly deleted (item, project, or organization deletion).

Azure DevOps uses Azure Storage and Azure SQL Database with geo-replication and backups to ensure availability and protection against accidental or malicious deletion. Point‑in‑time backups of blobs and databases are kept for 28 days for recovery purposes, but these backups are for disaster recovery and do not represent an automatic functional purge of live data while the organization remains active.

Automatic deletion behavior that is documented applies to:

• Pipeline runs, artifacts, symbols, attachments, and pull request runs, based on project-level pipeline retention policies.
• Classic release data, based on release retention policies and any global maximums (for Azure DevOps Server/on-prem) or view-only defaults (for Azure DevOps Services).
• Test data (manual and automated test runs/results/attachments), based on test retention policies.

These retention policies are configured under Project settings and are intended to control storage growth for pipelines, releases, and tests. They do not state any separate Microsoft-enforced time limit for boards or work items while the organization is active.

At the platform level, Azure DevOps protects customer data via:

• Geo-replication across paired regions (for example, within the same geography).
• Multiple copies of data (for blobs, three copies in-region plus asynchronous replication to a second region).
• Daily offsite backups for Azure SQL Database with 28‑day retention.

These mechanisms are for availability and recovery, not for automatic purging of active-organization data.

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References:

• Set retention policies for builds, releases, and tests
• Data protection overview
• Set test retention policies
• Pipeline Run Retention