Adding a VM Group

Add a VM group to identify a specific set of virtual machines to back up or restore.

Note

To enable backup validation for VMware virtual machines, including VMs that run applications, create a VM group that contains only those VMs, and then edit the VM group configuration to enable backup validation.

For more information, see Backup Validation and Editing VM Group Settings for VMware.

Before You Begin

Define a server plan that specifies the storage, retention, and backup schedule to be used for the VM group.

Caution

Because OpenShift applications do not have a UUID or GUID to uniquely identify each application, the Commvault software indexes each application with an ID in the form project_name-application_name.
If you delete an application and later create a new application for the project that uses the same application name, the backup history for the new application is indexed using the ID that was created for the original application. In that scenario, restoring from a backup job for the original application might overwrite data for the new application, resulting in data loss.

Procedure

From the navigation pane, go to Protect > Virtualization.

The Virtual machines page appears.
On the Hypervisors tab, click the hypervisor.

The hypervisor page appears.
Click Add VM group.

The Add VM group dialog box appears.
Provide the following information:
- Hypervisor: Select the hypervisor.
- Name: Type a descriptive name for the VM group.
- Browse and select VMs / Browse and select instances / Applications: Expand the tree below this field to select the content for the VM group. Click Select all to quickly select all objects or Clear all to remove all current selections.
  
  You can select one of the following options from the grouping list to control the browse display:
  - Alibaba Cloud:
    
    By region: Select an instance within a region.
    
    By zone: Display zones under each region and select an instance within a zone.
  - Amazon:
    
    By instance type: Select an instance of a particular type within a region.
    
    By region: Select an instance within a region.
    
    By zone: Select an instance within a zone and region.
    
    VMs: Select this option to browse and select specific VMs.
  - Google Cloud Platform:
    
    By region: Select an instance within a region.
    
    By zone: Select an instance within a zone and region.
  - Microsoft Azure:
    
    Regions: Select an Azure region to include all VMs in that region.
    
    Resource group: Select a resource group for Azure.
    
    Storage Accounts: Select a storage account to include all VMs that reside in the storage account.
    
    Tags: Select a tag to include all VMs associated with the selection.
    
    VMs: Select this option to browse and select specific VMs.
  - Microsoft Azure Stack Hub:
    
    Resource group: Select a resource group for Azure Stack Hub.
    
    VMs: Select this option to browse and select specific VMs.
  - Hyper-V:
    
    Group by host: Select this option to view hosts and the VMs running on each host. Select a host entry to protect all VMs on the host, or expand the tree to select specific VMs.
    
    Virtual machines are shown directly under the host.
    
    Storage: Select this option to view storage containing virtual machine data. Select the storage entry to protect all VMs on the storage, or expand the tree to select specific VMs.
    
    VMs: Select this option to browse and select specific VMs.
  - Nutanix AHV:
    
    Container: Select a storage container or specific virtual machines.
    
    Data protection: Select a host, protection domain, or specific virtual machines.
    
    VMs: Select this option to browse and select specific VMs.
  - OpenStack:
    
    Projects: Select a project, region, instance, or image.
    
    Admin: Select images or instances.
  - Oracle Cloud Infrastructure:
    
    VMs: Select instances to be backed up.
    
    You can only back up and restore instances in the root compartment and first-level compartments for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure regions. You cannot back up instances in subcompartments or restore instances to subcompartments. As a workaround, either move the instances to the root compartment or a first-level compartment, or install an agent such as a file system agent on the guest instances.
  - Oracle VM:
    
    Servers and VMs: Select server pools, VM pools, servers, or virtual machines.
    
    Repositories: Select storage repositories.
  - Red Hat OpenShift:
    
    Projects: Select a project to include all applications for the project, or expand a project to select applications.
    
    Applications: Select an application.
    
    Commvault only backs up applications that have persistent volume claims (PVCs).
  - Red Hat Virtualization:
    
    System: Select this option to view the data centers.
    
    Clusters: Select this option to view a specific cluster.
    
    Hosts: Select this option to view the RHEV Manager hosts.
    
    Storage: Select this option to view storage containing virtual machine data. Select the storage entry to protect all VMs on the storage, or expand the tree to select specific VMs.
    
    VMs: Select this option to browse and select specific VMs.
    
    Tags: Select a tag to include all VMs associated with the selection.
  - vCloud Director: Use the Organizations view to browse a vCenter, VDC, or vApp.
    
    You can select VMs under an entity or select an entity to include all VMs under the entity.
  - VMware:
    
    Hosts and clusters: Select this option to view hosts and the VMs running on each host. Select a host entry to protect all VMs on the host, or expand the tree to select specific VMs.
    
    The top level of the browse shows all accessible vCenters at the top level, ESX servers under vCenters, and virtual machines under each ESX server.
    
    VMs and templates: Select this option to browse and select specific VMs.
    
    Datastores and datastore clusters: Select this option to view datastores containing virtual machine data. The top level of the browse shows all accessible hosts at the top level, with datastores under hosts and virtual machines under each datastore. Select a datastore entry to protect all VMs on the storage, or expand the tree to select specific VMs.
    
    Tags and categories: Select this option to view categories, tags, and virtual machines that are marked with a tag.
    
    When you select a tag, the selection includes all VMs that are marked with the tag. When you select a category, the selection includes all VMs that are marked with a tag that belongs to the selected category.
  You can also define rules to discover virtual machines or instances automatically.
- Under Backup configuration, choose one of the following options:
  - Enable the Use backup plan option to associate a plan with the hypervisor.
    
    From the Plan list, select a plan that specifies the storage, retention, and backup schedule to be used for the VM group.
    
    Note
    
    For Amazon, Azure, Azure Stack Hub, Hyper-V, and VMware VM groups, you can enable IntelliSnap backups by creating a plan and adding the plan to a VM group. For more information, see Getting Started with IntelliSnap.
  - Disable the Use backup plan option to specify a storage policy and schedule policy that were defined using CommCell Console.
    
    From the Storage policy list, you can select a storage policy that was previously defined in CommCell Console or a plan that was defined in Command Center.
    
    Optional: You can select a schedule policy that was previously defined using CommCell Console.
- IntelliSnap: For Amazon, Azure and Azure Stack Hub, select this option to enable IntelliSnap backups.
  
  When you enable IntelliSnap for a VM group, the associated server plan is automatically updated to have the Snap enabled option selected.
Click Save to save the VM group.

VM groups are created with default settings for backup options.