Record deletion

An entity can be configured to support hard and soft record deletion at the master- or golden-data level.

You can configure an entity to support record deletion by selecting the Delete Enabled option for this entity.

Record deletion is performed either through hard or soft deletion and may impact master or golden records. In addition, how deletion propagates from parent to child entities is configured on the reference relationship of the model.

In an application using entities with deletion enabled, you configure delete actions in the entities' action sets.

Deletion is handled by the jobs generated when deploying a model edition. Changes in the deletion or deletion propagation configuration require the model edition to be redeployed.

Hard and soft delete

You can configure the deletion type for each delete action:

The hard delete method physically deletes records from the hub database. With this deletion method, data cannot be recovered.
The soft delete method logically deletes records by moving them to a deleted records storage.

Soft delete actions do not remove data from the source data (SD), source authoring (SA), master-record history (MH), or golden-record history (GH) tables.

Golden- vs. master-record deletion

Golden-record deletion is a functional delete action. When deleting a golden record, the deletion propagates to child records according to the deletion propagation configured on the references. In addition, deleting a golden record automatically deletes the master records (for matched entities) attached to this golden, as well as the source records.

Master-record deletion is designed to publish deletions performed in the source applications or to remove the records of a given publisher from the hub. When deleting one of the master records contributing to a golden record, the values consolidated in the golden record are updated to take into account this master-record deletion.

When you delete a master record, the golden record is not re-matched. It is re-consolidated without the deleted master and re-published into the hub.

Unlike golden-record deletion, master-record deletion does not support the delete propagation defined in the reference relationships. Master-record deletion is not blocked by a restriction nor propagated by a cascade, and references to deleted records are not automatically nullified. Each master-record deletion is considered individually.

If all the master records of a golden record are deleted, the golden record becomes legless and is automatically deleted. Golden-record deletion supports the deletion propagation defined in the reference relationships.