[role="xpack"]
[[overview-index-lifecycle-management]]
== {ilm-init} overview

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<titleabbrev>Overview</titleabbrev>
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You can create and apply {ilm-cap} ({ilm-init}) policies to automatically manage your indices
according to your performance, resiliency, and retention requirements.

Index lifecycle policies can trigger actions such as:

* **Rollover**: Creates a new write index when the current one reaches a certain
size, number of docs, or age.
* **Shrink**: Reduces the number of primary shards in an index.
* **Force merge**: Triggers a <<indices-forcemerge,force merge>> to reduce the
number of segments in an index's shards.
* **Delete**: Permanently remove an index, including all of its data and
metadata.

{ilm-init} makes it easier to manage indices in hot-warm-cold architectures,
which are common when you're working with time series data such as logs and metrics.

You can specify:

* The maximum shard size, number of documents, or age at which you want to roll over to a new index.
* The point at which the index is no longer being updated and the number of
primary shards can be reduced.
* When to force a merge to permanently remove documents marked for deletion.
* The point at which the index can be moved to less performant hardware.
* The point at which the availability is not as critical and the number of
replicas can be reduced.
* When the index can be safely deleted.

For example, if you are indexing metrics data from a fleet of ATMs into
Elasticsearch, you might define a policy that says:

. When the total size of the index's primary shards reaches 50GB, roll over to a new
index.
. Move the old index into the warm phase, mark it read only, and shrink it down
to a single shard.
. After 7 days, move the index into the cold phase and move it to less expensive
hardware.
. Delete the index once the required 30 day retention period is reached.

[IMPORTANT]
===========================
To use {ilm-init}, all nodes in a cluster must run the same version.
Although it might be possible to create and apply policies in a mixed-version cluster,
there is no guarantee they will work as intended.
Attempting to use a policy that contains actions that aren't
supported on all nodes in a cluster will cause errors.
===========================
