System and method for management of retention periods for content in a computing system

A distributed computing system, comprising:

• a plurality of data sources storing a plurality of documents in said distributed computing system, wherein said plurality of data sources include backup storage media;
• a database system configured to extract said plurality of documents from said plurality of data sources and de-duplicate said plurality of documents into document instances;
• and
• at least one computer-readable medium carrying computer-executable program instructions comprising:
• code for associating a document instance in said computing system with at least one category in said computing system, and with at least one custodian, wherein said category has an associated first retention policy that specifies a first retention period therefore, and wherein said custodian has an associated second retention policy that specifies a second retention period therefore;
• code for in response to said category and said custodian associated with said document instance, associating said document instance with said first and second retention policies;
• code for:
• setting a principle retention period for said document instance that has the longest retention policy and designating a policy that has the longest retention policy as the principle policy and designating all other associated policies as secondary policies for the document instance;
• and
• code for placing document instances that are expired or about to expire in a queue for deletion, modification, or suspension;
• code for removing from said queue any document instance having a modified or suspended retention period;
• and
• code for deleting any remaining document instance in said queue.

A method for setting a retention period for data in a distributed computing system comprising a processor and one or more associated databases with the data, the method comprising the steps of:

• loading a plurality of select data instances into one or more databases in a computing system;
• associating a select data instance in the computing system with at least one category in the computing system;
• assigning a code for associating the select data instance with at least one of a custodian and a group of custodians, where the custodian and the group of custodians is based on at least one of the following criteria:
• authorship, ownership, and user-defined criteria of the select data instance, wherein retention policies are associated with the custodian and the groups of custodians;
• associating the select data instance with one or more of the retention policies based on the custodian and the groups of custodians and the at least one category;
• and
• reviewing the select data instance and designating a policy with the longest retention period as the principle policy and all other associated policies as secondary policies for the select data instance;
• placing select data instances that are expired or about to expire in a queue for deletion, modification, or suspension;
• removing from the queue any select data instance having a modified or suspended retention period;
• and
• deleting any select data instance in the queue.