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Event Management – Storage Limit, Retention and Long-Term Event Data

SyedBurhanJamil
Tera Contributor

Hi Community,

I am trying to understand how ServiceNow Event Management should be sized and used when very large event volumes are involved.

I have already verified that raw events are stored in em_event, alerts in em_alert, and that em_event uses table rotation. In my test instance, the rotation is configured for 1 day with 7 rotations.

My main questions are:

  1. Is there any documented maximum storage/capacity limit for Event Management, such as a GB/TB limit, or is this based on customer-specific database/storage entitlement?

  2. With a 1-day duration and 7 rotations, is it correct to expect roughly 7 days of raw event retention before older rotation data is cleaned/reused?

  3. If an organization needs to retain millions of events for months or years, is the recommended approach to archive them in another ServiceNow table or export them to an external SIEM/data warehouse/data lake?

In short: If ServiceNow receives millions of events, how much data can realistically be retained, for how long, and what is the recommended architecture for longer-term retention?

Any official ServiceNow documentation, sizing guidance, entitlement information, or real-world implementation experience would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

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