NetBackup™ Web UI VMware Administrator's Guide

To create an intelligent VM group

1. On the left, click VMware.
2. Click the Intelligent VM groups tab and then click + Add.
3. Enter a name and description for the group.
4. Select the appropriate VMware server.

5. Perform one of the following:

   • Select Include all VMs.

     This option uses a default query to select all VMs that currently reside in the vCenter or ESXi for backup when the protection plan runs.

   • To select only the VMs that meet specific conditions, create your own query: Click Add condition.

6. To add a condition, use the drop-downs to select a keyword and operator and then enter a value.

   The options are described after this procedure: Query options for creating intelligent VM groups.

   The following is an example query:

   

   In this example, the query adds to the group any VM that has prod in its display name.

   To change the effect of the query, click + Condition and click AND or OR, then select the keyword, operator, and value for the condition. For example:

   

   This example uses AND to narrow the scope of the query: it selects only the VMs that have prod in their display name and that also have a tag named eng. If a VM does not have prod in its display name as well as a tag named eng, that VM is not added to the group.

   To broaden the scope of the query, use OR:

   

   In this example, OR causes the query to add the following to the group:

   • The VMs that have prod in their display name (regardless of any tags).

   • The VMs that have a tag named eng (regardless of the display name).

   You can also add sub-queries to a condition, if necessary. Click + Sub-query and click AND or OR, then select the keyword, operator, and value for the sub-query condition. For example:

   

   In this example, the sub-query causes the query to narrow the scope further. From the VMs that have both prod in their display name and a tag named eng, only the VMs in clusters that start with clust are selected.

7. To test the query, click Preview.

   Note:

   The query-based selection process is dynamic. Changes in the virtual environment can affect which VMs the query selects when the protection plan runs. As a result, the VMs that the query selects later when the protection plan runs may not be identical to those currently listed in the preview.

   Note:

   The discovery of VMs in the VMware server occurs at set intervals according to the VMWARE_AUTODISCOVERY_INTERVAL option. (The default interval is every 8 hours.) The web UI must discover the VMs on each server before the query can select from them. If a VMware server was recently added in the web UI, its VMs may not have been discovered. More information about this option is available:

   See VMWARE_AUTODISCOVERY_INTERVAL option for NetBackup servers.

   To discover the VMs immediately:

   See Discover VMware server assets manually.

8. To save the group without adding it to a protection plan, click Add.

   To save and add it to a protection plan, click Add and protect, select the plan, and click Protect.

   Note:

   When you click Preview or you save the group, the query options are treated as case-sensitive when the VMs are selected for the group. Under Virtual machines, if you click on a VM that was not selected for the group, the Member of virtual machine groups field reads none.

   However, when you add the group to a protection plan, some of the query options are treated as case-insensitive when the protection plan's backup runs. As a result, the same VM may now be included in the group and is backed up.

   For the case behavior of each option, see Query options for creating intelligent VM groups.