Managed backup to Azure does not delete backup after retention period I did set up SQL Server managed backup for our databases. I did define retention days to 4, but i just checked the azure storage account where the managed backups are and found that there is still all the files from the day i did set up managed backup (2015/12/1).

SQL i used on every user database:

    Use msdb;
    GO
    EXEC smart_admin.sp_set_db_backup 
            @database_name='TestDB' 
            ,@retention_days=4 
            ,@credential_name='MyCredential'
            ,@encryption_algorithm ='AES_128'
            ,@encryptor_type= 'Certificate'
            ,@encryptor_name='MyBackupCert'
            ,@enable_backup=1; 


We are using SQL Server 2014 Enterprise with Azure VM.

Set up tutorials and information about the managed backups: MSDN

Is SQL server managed backup to Azure supposed to automatically delete backups after given retention days have passed or do i need to implement custom job for that?
I ended up making a Sql server agent job that runs this with powershell mode:

# Ps1-script to keep azure storageaccount for managed backups clean

Import-Module Azure

$storageAccount = "STORAGEACCOUNTNAME"
$storageKey = "STORAGEKEY"
$blobContainer = "CONTAINERNAME"

$CleanupTime = [DateTime]::UtcNow.AddDays(-4)
$context = New-AzureStorageContext -StorageAccountName $storageAccount -StorageAccountKey $storageKey
Get-AzureStorageBlob -Container $blobContainer -Context $context | 
Where-Object { $_.LastModified.UtcDateTime -lt $CleanupTime -and $_.BlobType -eq "PageBlob" -and $_.Name -like "*.bak"} |
Remove-AzureStorageBlob
$CleanupTime = [DateTime]::UtcNow.AddDays(-4)
Get-AzureStorageBlob -Container $blobContainer -Context $context | 
Where-Object { $_.LastModified.UtcDateTime -lt $CleanupTime -and $_.BlobType -eq "PageBlob" -and $_.Name -like "*.log"} |
Remove-AzureStorageBlob


This does delete all .bak and .log files older than 4 days. It does not however work on blobs that does have active lease on them.