---
title: Universal Profiling index life cycle management
description: Index lifecycle policies allow you to automate the lifecycle of your profiling indices as they grow and age. A default policy is applied, but you can...
url: https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/solutions/observability/infra-and-hosts/universal-profiling-index-life-cycle-management
products:
  - Elastic Observability
applies_to:
  - Elastic Cloud Serverless: Unavailable
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
---

# Universal Profiling index life cycle management
Index lifecycle policies allow you to automate the lifecycle of your profiling indices as they grow and age. A default policy is applied, but you can customize it based on your business needs.

## Default policy

The default Universal Profiling index lifecycle policy includes the following rollover and delete definitions:
- **Rollover**: Rollover prevents a single index from growing too large and optimizes indexing and search performance. After an age or size metric threshold is met, a new index is created and all subsequent updates are written to the new index.
- **Delete**: The delete phase permanently removes the index after a time threshold is met.

The following table lists the default thresholds for rollover and delete:

| Rollover               | Warm tier     | Delete        |
|------------------------|---------------|---------------|
| after 30 days or 50 GB | after 30 days | after 60 days |

<note>
  The [rollover condition blocks phase transitions](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/reference/elasticsearch/index-lifecycle-actions/ilm-rollover#_rollover_condition_blocks_phase_transition) which means that indices are kept 30 days **after** rollover on the hot tier.
</note>

To view the Universal Profiling index lifecycle policy in Kibana, open **Index Lifecycle Management** from the navigation menu or using the [global search field](https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/explore-analyze/find-and-organize/find-apps-and-objects), and search for `profiling`.
<tip>
  Default ILM policies can change between minor versions. This is not considered a breaking change as index management should continually improve and adapt to new features.
</tip>


## Configure a custom index lifecycle policy

Complete the following steps to configure a custom index lifecycle policy.

### Step 1: Create an index lifecycle policy

1. Open the **Index Lifecycle Policies** management page from the navigation menu or using the [global search field](https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/explore-analyze/find-and-organize/find-apps-and-objects).
2. Click **Create policy**.
3. Name your new policy, for example `custom-profiling-policy`.
4. Customize the policy to your liking.
5. Click **Save policy**.

<tip>
  See [Manage the index lifecycle](https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/manage-data/lifecycle/index-lifecycle-management) to learn more about ILM policies.
</tip>


### Step 2: Apply the index lifecycle policy

To apply your new index lifecycle policy for Universal Profiling, create a new component template named `profiling-ilm@custom`.
<note>
  To apply a custom ILM policy, you must name the component template `profiling-ilm@custom`. Other names are not supported.
</note>

1. From the **Index Management** page, select the **Component Template** tab and click **Create component template**.
2. Enter `profiling-ilm@custom` as the name and click **Next**.
3. In **Index settings**, set the ILM policy name created in the previous step:
   ```json
   {
     "lifecycle": {
       "name": "custom-profiling-policy"
     }
   }
   ```
4. Continue to the **Review** step, and select the **Request** tab. Your request should look similar to the following image.
   If it does, click **Create component template**.
   ![Create component template](https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/solutions/images/observability-profiling-create-component-template.png)


### Step 3: Rollover indices

Confirm that Universal Profiling is now using the new index template and ILM policy:
1. Open **Console** by finding `Dev Tools` in the [global search field](https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/explore-analyze/find-and-organize/find-apps-and-objects).
2. Run the following:
   ```bash
   GET _ilm/policy/custom-profiling-policy 
   ```

If the custom policy is already applied, the result should include the following:
```json
{
    "in_use_by": {
      "indices": [
        ...
      ],
      "data_streams": [
        ...
        "profiling-events-all",
        ...
      ],
      "composable_templates": [
        "profiling-stackframes",
        "profiling-symbols-global",
        "profiling-metrics",
        "profiling-stacktraces",
        "profiling-executables",
        "profiling-hosts",
        "profiling-events"
      ]
    }
}
```

If the result is empty, the custom ILM policy is not yet in use. New ILM policies only take effect when new indices are created, so either wait for a rollover to occur (usually after 30 days or when the index size reaches 50 GB), or force a rollover using the [Elasticsearch rollover API](https://www.elastic.co/docs/api/doc/elasticsearch/operation/operation-indices-rollover):
```bash
POST /profiling-events-5pow01/_rollover/
POST /profiling-events-5pow02/_rollover/
POST /profiling-events-5pow03/_rollover/
POST /profiling-events-5pow04/_rollover/
POST /profiling-events-5pow05/_rollover/
POST /profiling-events-5pow06/_rollover/
POST /profiling-events-5pow07/_rollover/
POST /profiling-events-5pow08/_rollover/
POST /profiling-events-5pow09/_rollover/
POST /profiling-events-5pow10/_rollover/
POST /profiling-events-5pow11/_rollover/
POST /profiling-events-all/_rollover/
POST /profiling-executables/_rollover/
POST /profiling-hosts/_rollover/
POST /profiling-metrics/_rollover/
POST /profiling-stackframes/_rollover/
POST /profiling-stacktraces/_rollover/
POST /profiling-symbols-global/_rollover/
```

After the rollover, the custom ILM policy will be applied to new indices and data streams.