Hello, I'd like to gauge acceptance of introducing a feature that would give operators a config option to perform real database deletes instead of soft deletes. There's definitely a need for *something* that cleans up the database. There have been a few attempts at a DB purge engine [1][2][3][4][5], and archiving to shadow tables has been merged [6] (though that currently has some issues [7]). DB archiving notwithstanding, the general response to operators when they mention the database becoming too big seems to be "DIY cleanup." I would like to propose a different approach: add a config option that turns soft-deletes into real deletes, and start telling operators "if you turn this on, it's DIY backups." Would something like that be acceptable and feasible? I'm ready to put in the work to implement this, however searching the mailing list indicates that it would be somewhere between non trivial and impossible [8]. Before I start, I would like some confidence that it's closer to the former than the latter :) Cheers! [1] https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/db-purge-engine [2] https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/db-purge2 [3] https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/remove-db-archiving [4] https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/database-purge [5] https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/db-archiving [6] https://review.openstack.org/#/c/18493/ [7] https://review.openstack.org/#/c/109201/ [8] http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-operators/2014-November/005591.html